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THE OREGON TRAIL 



THE 



OREGON TRAIL 



SKETCHES 



OF 



PRAIRIE AND ROCKY- MOUNTAIN LIFE 



BY 



FRANCIS PARKMAN 



lUustratet) 6g Jretierfc Ennington 



SEP 28 1892 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY {j'^^ ^ 

1892 



\^.M^f.,.SKK. 



Entered according to Act of Congress in Uie year 1872, by 

Francis Parkman, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Copyright, 1892, 
By Francis Parkman. 



mntbcrsitg 113rcss: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



TO 

The Comrade of a Summer and the Friend of a Lifetime, 
QUINCY ADAMS SHAW. 



PREFACE 

TO THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION. 



IN the preface to the fourth edition of this book, 
printed in 1872, I spoke of the changes that 
had already come over the Far West. Since that 
time change has grown to metamorphosis. For 
Indian teepees, with their trophies of bow, lance, 
shield, and dangling scalplocks, we have towns and 
cities, resorts of health and pleasure seekers, with an 
agreeable society, Paris fashions, the magazines, the 
latest poem, and the last new novel. The sons of 
civilization, drawn by the fascinations of a fresher 
and bolder life, thronged to the western wilds in 
multitudes which blighted the charm that had lured 
them. 

The buffalo is gone, and of all his millions nothing 
is left but bones. Tame cattle and fences of barbed 
wire have supplanted his vast herds and boundless 
grazing grounds. Those discordant serenaders, the 
wolves that howled at evening about the traveller's 
camp-fire have succumbed to arsenic and hushed 



Vlli PREFACE TO THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION. 

their savage music. The wild Indian is turned into 
an ugly caricature of his conqueror; and that which 
made him romantic, terrible, and hateful, is in large 
measure scourged out of him. The slow cavalcade 
of horsemen armed to the teeth has disappeared 
before parlor cars and the effeminate comforts of 
modern travel. 

The rattlesnakes have grown bashful and retiring. 
The mountain lion shrinks from the face of man, and 
even grim "Old Ephraim," ^ the grizzly bear, seeks 
the seclusion of his dens and caverns. It is said that 
he is no longer his former self, having found by an 
intelligence not hitherto set to his credit, that his 
ferocious strength is no match for a repeating rifle ; 
with which discovery he is reported to have grown 
diffident, and abated the truculence of his more pros- 
perous days. One may be permitted to doubt if the 
blood-thirsty old savage has really experienced a 
change of heart; and before inviting him to single 
combat, the ambitious tenderfoot, though the proud 
possessor of a Winchester with sixteen cartridges 
in the magazine, would do well to consider not only 
the quality of his weapon, but also that of his own 
nerves. 

He who feared neither bear, Indian, nor devil, the 
all-daring and all-enduring trapper, belongs to the 

1 Alias " Old Caleb " and " Old Enoch." 



PREFACE TO THE ILLUSTRATED EDITION. ix 

past, or lives only in a few gray-bearded survivals. 
In his stead we have the cowboy, and even his star 
begins to wane. 

The Wild West is tamed, and its savage charms 
have withered. If this book can help to keep their 
memory alive, it will have done its part. It has 
found a powerful helper in the pencil of Mr. Rem- 
ington, whose pictures are as full of truth as of spirit, 
for they are the work of one who knew the prairies 
and the mountains before irresistible commonplace 
had subdued them. 

Boston, i6 September, 1892. 



PREFACE 

TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 



^HE following sketches first appeared in 1847. A sum- 
J- mer's adventures of two youths just out of college might 
well enough be allowed to fall into oblivion, were it not that 
a certain interest will always attach to the record of that 
which has passed away never to return. This book is the 
reflection of forms and conditions of life which have ceased, 
in great measure, to exist. It reflects the image of an irre- 
vocable past. 

I remember that, as we rode by the foot of Pike's Peak, 
when for a fortnight we had met no face of man, my compan- 
ion remarked, in a tone anything but complacent, that a time 
would come when those plains would be a grazing country, 
the buffalo give place to tame cattle, farm-houses be scattered 
along the water-courses, and wolves, bears, and Indians be 
numbered among the things that were. We condoled with 
each other on so melancholy a prospect, but we little thought 
what the future had in store. We knew that there was more 
or less gold in the seams of those untrodden mountains; but 
we did not foresee that it would build cities in the waste, and 
plant hotels and gambling-houses among the haunts of the 
grizzly bear. We knew that a few fanatical outcasts were 
groping their way across the plains to seek an asylum from 
gentile persecution ; but we did not imagine that the polyga- 



Xll 



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 



mous hordes of Mormon would rear a swarming Jerusalem m 
the bosom of solitude itself. We knew that, more and more, 
year after year, the trains of emigrant wagons would creep m 
slow procession towards barbarous Oregon or wild and dis- 
tant California ; but we did not dream how Commerce and 
Gold would breed nations along the Pacific, the disenchantmg 
screech of the locomotive break the spell of weird, mysterious 
mountains, woman's rights invade the fastnesses ofthe Arapa- 
hoes. and despairing savagery, assailed in front and rear, vail 
its scalplocks and feathers before triumphant commonplace. 
We were no prophets to foresee all this; and, had we fore- 
seen it, perhaps some perverse regrets might have tempered 
the ardor of our rejoicing. 

The wild cavalcade that defiled with me down the gorges 
ofthe Black Hills, with its paint and war-plumes, fluttering 
trophies and savage embroidery, bows, arrows, lances, and 
shields, will never be seen again. Those who formed it have 
found bloody graves, or a ghastlier burial in the maws of 
wolves The Indian of to-day, armed with a revolver and 
crowned with an old hat, cased, possibly, in trousers or 
mufiled in a tawdry shirt, is an Indian still, but an Indian 
shorn ofthe picturesqueness which was his most conspicuous 

merit. 

The mountain trapper is no more, and the grim romance 

of his wild, hard life is a memory of the past. 

As regards the motives which sent us to the mountains, our 
likin- fo" them would have sufficed; but, in my case, another 
incentive was added. I went in great measure as a student, 
to prepare for a literary undertaking of which the plan was 
already formed, but which, from the force of inexorable cir- 
cumstances, is still but half accomplished. It was this that 
prompted some proceedings on my part which, without a 
fixed purpose in view, might be charged with youthful rash- 



PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. xiii 

ness. My business was observation, and I was willing to 
pay dearly for the opportunity of exercising it. 

Two or three years ago I made a visit to our guide, the 
brave and true-hearted Henry Chatillon, at the town of Caron- 
delet, near St. Louis. It was more than twenty years since 
we had met. Time hung heavy on his hands, as usual with 
old mountain-men married and established; his hair was 
touched with gray, and his face and figure showed tokens of 
early hardship ; but the manly simplicity of his character was 
unchanged. He told me that the Indians with whom I had 
been domesticated, a band of the hated Sioux, had nearly all 
been killed in fights with the white men. 

The faithful Deslauriers is, I believe, still living on the 
frontier of Missouri. The hunter Raymond perished in the 
snow during Fremont's disastrous passage of the mountains 
in the winter of 1848. 

Boston, March 30, 1872. 



i 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Frontier i 

II. Breaking the Ice lo 

III. Fort Leavenworth 25 

IV. "Jumping Off" 29 

V. The "Big Blue" 41 

VI. The Platte and the Desert ..." 55 

VII. The Buffalo 70 

VIII. Taking French Leave 86 

IX. Scenes at Fort Laramie 104 

X. The War Parties 121 

XI. Scenes at the Camp 147 

XII. Ill-luck 168 

XIII. Hunting Indians 178 

XIV. The Ogillallah Village 204 

XV. The Hunting Camp 229 

XVI. The Trappers 258 

XVII. The Black Hills 269 

XVIII. A Mountain Hunt 274 

XIX. Passage of the Mountains 289 

XX. The Lonely Journey 306 

XXI. The Pueblo and Bent's Fort 328 

XXII. Tete Rouge, the Volunteer 337 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIII. Indian Alarms . 343 

XXIV. The Chase 356 

XXV. The Buffalo CaxMP 367 

XXVI. Down the Arkansas 384 

XXVII. The Settlements . 402 




CHAPTER I. 



THE FRONTIER. 



LAST spring, 1846, was a busy season in the city of 
St. Louis. Not only were emigrants from every part 
of the country preparing for the journey to Oregon and 
California, but an unusual number of traders were mak- 
ing ready their wagons and outfits for Santa Fe. The 
hotels were crowded, and the gunsmiths and saddlers were 
kept constantly at work in providing arms and equipments 
for the different parties of travellers. Steamboats were 
leaving the levee and passing up the Missouri, crowded 
with passengers on their way to the frontier. 

In one of these, the "Radnor," since snagged and lost, 
my friend and relative Ouincy Adams Shaw, and myself 
left St. Louis on the 28th of April, on a tour oi curiosity 

I 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



and amusement to the Rocky Momitains. The boat was 
loaded until the water broke alternately over her guards. 
Her upper-deck was covered with large wagons of a pecu- 
liar form, for the Santa Fe trade, and her hold was crammed 
with goods for the same destination. There were also the 
equipments and provisions of a party of Oregon emigrants, 
a band of mules and horses, piles of saddles and harness, 
and a multitude of nondescript articles, indispensable on 
the prairies. Almost hidden in this medley was a small 
French cart, of the sort very appropriately called a 
"mule-killer" beyond the frontiers, and not far distant a 
tent, together with a miscellaneous assortment of boxes 
and barrels. The whole equipage was far from prepossess- 
ing in its appearance ; yet, such as it was, it was destined 
to a long and arduous journey, on which the persevering 
reader will accompany it. 

The passengers on board the " Radnor" corresponded with 
her freight. In her cabin were Santa Fe traders, gamblers, 
speculators, and adventurers of various descriptions, and her 
steerage was crowded with Oregon emigrants, "mountain 
men," negroes, and a party of Kanzas Indians, who had 
been on a visit to St. Louis. 

Thus laden the boat struggled upward for seven or eight 
days against the rapid current of the Missouri, grating upon 
snags, and hanging for two or three hours at a time upon 
sand-bars. We entered the mouth of the Missouri in a 
drizzling rain, but the weather soon became clear, and 
showed distinctly the broad and turbid river, with its 
eddies, its sand-bars, its ragged islands, and forest-covered 
shores. The Missouri is constantly changing its course,— 
wearing away its banks on one side, while it forms new 
ones on the other. Its channel is continually shifting. 
Islands are formed, and then washed away; and while the 



THE FRONTIER. 



old forests on one side are undermined and swept off, a 
young growth springs up from the new soil upon the other. 
With all these changes the water is so charged with mud 
and sand that, in spring, it is perfectly opaque, and in a 
few minutes deposits a sediment an inch thick in the bot- 
tom of a tumbler. The river was now high; but when we 
descended in the autumn it was fallen very low, and all the 
secrets of its treacherous shallows were exposed to view. 
It was frightful to see the dead and broken trees, thick-set 
as a military abattis, firmly imbedded in the sand, and all 
pointing down stream, ready to impale any unhappy steam- 
boat that at high water should pass over them. 

In five or six days we began to see signs of the great 
western movement that was taking place. Parties of emi- 
grants, with their tents and wagons, were encamped on 
open spots near the bank, on their way to the common 
rendezvous at Independence. On a rainy day, near sunset, 
we reached the landing of this place, which is some miles 
from the river, on the extreme frontier of Missouri. The 
scene was characteristic, for here were represented at one 
view the most remarkable features of this wild and enter- 
prising region. On the muddy shore stood some thirty or 
forty dark, slavish-looking Spaniards, gazing stupidly out 
from beneath their broad hats. They were attached to 
one of the Santa Fe companies, whose wagons were 
crowded together on the banks above. In the midst of 
these, crouching over a smouldering fire, was a group of 
Indians, belonging to a remote Mexican tribe. One or 
two French hunters from the mountains, with their long 
hair and buckskin dresses, were looking at the boat ; and 
seated on a log close at hand were three men, with rifles 
lying across their knees. The foremost of these, a tall, 
strong figure, with a clear blue eye and an open, intelli- 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



gent face, might very well represent that race of restless 
and intrepid pioneers whose axes and rifles have opened 
a path from the Alleghanies to the western prairies. He 
was on his way to Oregon, probably a more congenial 
field to him than any that now remained on this side 
of the great plains. 

Early on the next morning we reached Kanzas, about 
five hundred miles from the mouth of the Missouri. Here 
we landed, and leaving our equipments in charge of Colonel 
Chick, whose log-house was the substitute for a tavern, we 
set out in a wagon for Westport, where we hoped to pro- 
cure mules and horses for the journey. 

It was a remarkably fresh and beautiful May morning. 
The woods, through which the miserable road conducted 
us, were lighted by the bright sunshine and enlivened 
by a multitude of birds. We overtook on the way our 
late fellow-travellers, the Kanzas Indians, who adorned 
with all their finery were proceeding homeward at a round 
pace; and whatever they might have seemed on board 
the boat, they made a very striking and picturesque feat- 
ure in the forest landscape. 

Westport was full of Indians, whose little shaggy ponies 
were tied bv dozens along the houses and fences. Sacs and 
Foxes, with shaved heads and painted faces, Shawanoes 
and Delawares, fluttering in calico frocks and turbans, 
Wyandots dressed like white men, and a few wretched 
Kan^s wrapped in old blankets, were strolling about the 
streets or lounging in and out of the shops and houses. 

As I stood at the door of the tavern I saw a remarkable- 
looking personage coming up the street. He had a ruddy 
face, garnished with the stumps of a bristl}' red beard 
and moustache ; on one side of his head was a round 
cap with a knob at the top, such as Scottish laborers 



THE FRONTIER. 5 

sometimes wear; his coat was of a nondescript form, and 
made of a gray Scotch plaid, with the fringes hanging all 
about it; he wore trousers of coarse homespun, and hob- 
nailed shoes; and to complete his equipment, a little black 
pipe was stuck in one corner of his mouth. In this curi- 
ous attire, I recognized Captain C , of the British army, 

who, with his brother, and Mr. R , an English gentle- 
man, was bound on a hunting expedition across the conti- 
nent. I had seen the Captain and his companions at St. 
Louis. They had now been for some time at Westport, 
making preparations for their departure, and waiting for 
a reinforcement, since they were too few in number to at- 
tempt it alone. They might, it is true, have joined some 
of the parties of emigrants who were on the point of set- 
ting out for Oregon and California; but they professed 
great disinclination to have any connection with the "Ken- 
tucky fellows." 

The Captain now urged it upon us that we should join 
forces and proceed to the mountains in company. Feel- 
ing no greater partiality for the society of the emigrants 
than they did, we thought the arrangement a good one, 
and consented to it. Our future fellow-travellers had in- 
stalled themselves in a little log-house, where we found 
them surrounded by saddles, harness, guns, pistols, tele- 
scopes, knives, and in short their complete appointments 
for the prairie. R , who had a taste for natural his- 
tory, sat at a table stuffing a woodpecker; the brother 
of the Captain, who was an Irishman, was splicing a trail- 
rope on the floor. The Captain pointed out, with much 
complacency, the different articles of their outfit. "You 
see," said he, "that we are all old travellers. I am con- 
vinced that no party ever went upon the prairie better 
provided." The hunter whom they had employed, a surly- 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



looking Canadian, named Sorel, and their muleteer, an 
American ruffian from St. Louis, were lounging about the 
building. In a little log stable close at hand were their 
horses and mules, selected with excellent judgment by 
the Captain. 

We left them to complete their arrangements, while we 
pushed our own to all convenient speed. The emigrants, 
for whom our friends professed such contempt were en- 
camped on the prairie about eight or ten miles distant, 
to the number of a thousand or more, and new parties, 
were constantly passing out from Independence to join 
them. They were in great confusion, holding meetings, 
passing resolutions, and drawing up regulations, but un- 
able to unite in the choice of leaders to conduct them 
across the prairie. Being at leisure one day, I rode over 
to Independence. The town was crowded. A multitude 
of shops had sprung up to furnish the emigrants and 
Santa Fe traders with necessaries for their journey; and 
there was an incessant hammering and banging from a 
dozen blacksmiths' sheds, where the heavy wagons were 
being repaired, and the horses and oxen shod. The streets 
were thronged with men, horses, and mules. While I was 
in the town, a train of emigrant wagons from Illinois 
passed through, to join the camp on the prairie, and 
stopped in the principal street. A multitude of healthy 
children's faces were peeping out from under the covers 
ot the wagons. Here and there a buxom damsel was seated 
on horseback, holding over her sunburnt face an old umbrella 
or a parasol, once gaudy enough, but now miserably faded. 
The men, very sober-looking countrymen, stood about 
their oxen; and as I passed I noticed three old fellows, 
who, with their long whips in their hands, were zealously 
discussing the doctrine of regeneration. The emigrants, 



THE FRONTIER. 



however, are not all of this stamp. Among them are 
some of the vilest outcasts in the country. I have often 
perplexed myself to divine the various motives that give 
impulse to this migration; but whatever they may be, 
whether an insane hope of a better condition in life, or 
a desire of shaking off restraints of law and society, or 
mer.e restlessness, certain it is that multitudes bitterly 
repent the journey, and, after they have reached the land 
of promise, are happy enough to escape from it. 

In the course of seven or eight days we had brought 
our preparations nearly to a close. Meanwhile our friends 
had completed theirs, and, becoming tired of Westport, 
they told us that they would set out in advance, and wait 
at the crossing of the Kanzas till we should come up. 

Accordingly R and the muleteer went forward with 

the wagon and tent, while the Captain and his brother, 
together with Sorel and a trapper named Boisverd, who 
had joined them, followed with the band of horses. The 
commencement of the journey was ominous, for the cap- 
tain was scarcely a mile from Westport, riding along in 
state at the head of his party, leading his intended buffalo 
horse by a rope, when a tremendous thunder-storm came 
on and drenched them all to the skin. They hurried on 

to reach the place, about seven miles off, where R 

was to have had the camp in readiness to receive them. 
But this prudent person, when he saw the storm approach- 
ing, had selected a sheltered glade in the woods, where 
he pitched his tent, and was sipping a comfortable cup 
of coffee while the Captain galloped for miles beyond 
through the rain to look for him. At length the storm 
cleared away, and the sharp-eyed trapper succeeded in 

discovering his tent. R had by this time finished his 

coffee, and was seated on a buffalo-robe smoking his pipe. 



8 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

The Captain was one of the most easy-tempered men in 
existence, so he bore his ill-luck with great composure, 
shared the dregs of the coffee with his brother, and lay 
down to sleep in his wet clothes. 

We ourselves had our share of the deluge. We were 
leading a pair of mules to Kanzas when the storm broke. 
Such sharp and incessant flashes of lightning, such stun- 
ning; and continuous thunder I had never known before. 
The woods were completely obscured by the diagonal sheets 
of rain that fell with a heavy roar, and rose in spray from 
the ground, and the streams swelled so rapidly that we 
could hardly ford them. At length, looming through the 
rain, we saw the log-house of Colonel Chick, who received 
us with his usual bland hospitality; while his wife, who, 
though a little soured and stiffened by a long course of 
camp-meetings, was not behind him in good-will, supplied 
us with the means of bettering our drenched and bedraggled 
condition. The storm clearing away at about sunset opened 
a noble prospect from the porch of the Colonel's house 
which stands upon a high hill. The sun streamed from the 
breaking clouds upon the swift and angry Missouri, and on 
the vast expanse of forest that stretched from its banks 
back to the distant bluffs. 

Returning on the next day to Westport we received a 
message from the Captain, who had ridden back to de- 
liver it in person, but finding that we were in Kanzas, 
had intrusted it to an acquaintance of his, named Vogel, 
who kept a small grocery and liquor shop. Whiskey, by 
the way, circulates more freely in Westport than is alto- 
gether safe in a place where every man carries a loaded 
pistol in his pocket. As we passed this establishment 
we saw Vogel 's broad German face thrust from his door. 
He said he had something to tell us, and invited us to 



THE FRONTIER. 



take a dram. Neither his liquor nor his message was 
very palatable. The Captain had returned to give us no- 
tice that R , who assumed the direction of his party 

had determined upon another route from that agreed upon 
between us ; and instead of taking the course of the traders, 
had resolved to pass northward by Fort Leavenworth, and 
follow the path marked out by the dragoons in their ex- 
pedition of last summer. To adopt such a plan without 
consulting us, we looked upon as a high-handed pro- 
ceeding; but suppressing our dissatisfaction as well as 
we could, we made up our minds to join them at Fort 
Leavenworth, where they were to wait for us. 

Accordingly, our preparation being now complete, we 
attempted one fine morning to begin our journey. The 
first step was an unfortunate one. No sooner were our 
animals put in harness than the shaft-mule reared and 
plunged, burst ropes and straps, and nearly flung the cart 
into the Missouri. Finding her wholly uncontrollable, we 
exchanged her for another, with which we were furnished 
by our friend Mr. Boone, of Westport, a grandson of 
Daniel Boone, the pioneer. This foretaste of prairie ex- 
perience was very soon followed by another. Westport was 
scarcely out of sight when we encountered a deep muddy 
gully, of a species that afterward became but too familiar 
to us, and here for the space of an hour or more the cart 
stuck fast. 




CHAPTER II. 

BREAKING THE ICE. 

EMERGING from the mud-holes of Westport, we pur- 
sued our way for some time along the narrow track, 
in the checkered sunshine and shadow of the woods, till 
at length, issuing into the broad light, we left behind us 
the farthest outskirts of the great forest that once spread 
from the western plains to the shore of the Atlantic. 
Looking over an intervening belt of bushes, we saw the 
green, ocean-like expanse of prairie, stretching swell be- 
yond swell to the horizon. 

It was a mild, calm spring day, — a day when one is more 
disposed to musing and reverie than to action, and the 
softest part of his nature is apt to gain the upper hand. 
I rode in advance of the party as we passed through the 
bushes, and as a nook of green grass offered a strong 
temptation, I dismounted and lay down there. All the 
trees and saplings were in flower, or budding into fresh 
leaf; the red clusters of the maple-blossoms and the rich 
flowers of the Indian apple were there in profusion; and 
I was half inclined to regret leaving behind the land of 
garden?, for the rude and stern scenes of the prairie and 
the mountains. 

Meanwhile the party came in sight out of the bushes. 
Foremost rode Henry Chatillon, our guide and hunter, a 
fine athletic figure, mounted on a hardy gray Wyandot 
pony. He wore a white blanket-coat, a broad hat of felt. 



BREAKING THE ICE. 



II 




--Avtietic A^r)v.i^|(rN.— 



moccasins, and trousers of deer-skin, ornamented , along 
the seams with rows of long fringes. His knife was stuck 
in his belt ; his bullet-pouch and powder-horn hung at his 
side, ^nd his rifTe lay before him, resting against the high 
pommel of his saddle, which like all his equipments had 
seen hard service and was much the worse for wear. Shaw 



12 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

followed close, mounted on a little sorrel horse and lead- 
ing a larger animal by a rope. His outfit, which resem- 
bled mine, had been provided with a view to use rather 
than ornament. It consisted of a plain, black Spanish 
saddle, with holsters of heavy pistols, a blanket rolled up 
behind, and the trail-rope attached to his horse's neck 
hanging coiled in front. He carried a double-barrelled 
smooth-bore, while I had a rifle of some fifteen pounds' 
weight. At that time our attire, though far from elegant, 
bore some marks of civilization, and offered a very favor- 
able contrast to the inimitable shabbiness of our appear- 
ance on the return journey. A red flannel shirt, belted 
around the waist like a frock, then constituted our upper 
garment; moccasins had supplanted our failing boots; and 
the remaining essential portion of our attire consisted of 
an extraordinary article manufactured by a squaw out of 
smoked buckskin. Our muleteer, Deslauriers, brougiit up 
the rear with his cart, wading ankle-deep in the mud, 
alternately pufifing at his pipe and ejaculating, in his 
prairie patois, '' Sacjr enfant dc gairc !" as one of the mules 
would seem to recoil before some abyss of unusual profund- 
ity. The cart was of the kind that one may see by scores 
around the market-place at Quebec, and had a white cov- 
ering to protect the articles within. These were our pro- 
visions and a tent, with ammunition, blankets, and presents 
for the Indians. 

We were in all four men with eight animals ; for besides 
the spare horses led by Shaw and myself, an additional 
mule was driven along with us as a reserve in case of 
accident. 

After this summing up of our forces it may not be amiss 
to glance at the characters of the two men who accom- 
panied us. 



BREAKING THE ICE. 



13 




14 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Deslauriers was a Canadian, with all the characteristics 
of the true Jean Baptiste. Neither fatigue, exposure, nor 
hard labor could ever impair his cheerfulness and gayety, 
or his politeness to his bourgeois; and when night came 
he would sit down by the fire, smoke his pipe, and tell 
stories with the utmost contentment. The prairie was 
his element. Henry Chatillon was of a different stamp. 
When we were at St. Louis, several gentlemen of the Fur 
Company had kindly offered to procure for us a hunter and 
guide suited for our purposes; and on coming one afternoon 
to the office, we found there a tall and exceedingly well- 
dressed man, with a face so open and frank that it attracted 
our notice at once. We were surprised at being told that 
it was he who wished to guide us to the mountains. He 
was born in a little French town near St. Louis, and from 
the age of fifteen years had been constantly in the neighbor- 
hood of the Rocky Mountains, employed for the most part 
by the company, to supply their forts with buffalo meat. 
As a hunter, he had but one rival in the whole region, a 
man named Simoneau, with whom, to the honor of both of 
them, he was on terms of the closest friendship. He had 
arrived at St. Louis the day before, from the mountains, 
where he had been for four years; and he now asked only 
to go and spend a day with his mother, before setting 
out on another expedition. His age was about thirty; he 
was six feet high, and very powerfully and gracefully 
moulded. The prairies had been his school; he could 
neither read nor write, but he had a natural refinement and 
delicacy of mind, such as is rare even in women. His manly 
face was a mirror of uprightness, simplicity, and kindness 
of heart ; he had, moreover, a keen perception of character, 
and a tact that would preserve him from flagrant error in 
any society. Henry had not the restless energy of an 



BREAKING THE ICE. 



15 



Anglo-American. He was content to take things as he 
found them; and his chief fault arose from an excess of 
easy generosity, not conducive to thriving in the world. 
Yet it was commonly remarked of him that, whatever he 




might choose to do with what belonged to himself, the 
property of others was always safe in his hands. His 
bravery was as much celebrated in the mountains as his 
skill in hunting; but it is characteristic of him that, in 
a country where the rifle is the chief arbiter between man 



l6 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

and man, he was very seldom involved in quarrels. Once 
or twice, indeed, his quiet good-nature had been mistaken 
and presumed upon, but the consequences of the error were 
such that no one was ever known to repeat it. No bet- 
ter evidence of the intrepidity of his temper could be 
asked than the common report that he had killed more 
than thirty grizzly bears. He was a proof of what un- 
aided nature will sometimes do. I have never, in the city 
or in the wilderness, met a better man than my true- 
hearted friend, Henry Chatillon. 

We were soon free of the woods and bushes, and fairly 
upon the broad prairie. Now and then a Shawanoe passed 
us, riding his little shaggy pony at a " lope," his calico shirt, 
his gaudy sash, and the gay handkerchief bound around his 
snaky hair, fluttering in the wind. At noon we stopped to 
rest not far from a little creek, replete with frogs and 
young turtles. There had been an Indian encampment at 
the place, and the framework of the lodges still remained, 
enabling us very easily to gain a shelter from the sun, 
by merely spreading one or two blankets over them. Thus 
shaded, we sat upon our saddles, and Shaw for the first 
time lighted his favorite Indian pipe, while Deslauriers 
was squatted over a hot bed of coals, shading his eyes 
with one hand, and holding a little stick in the other, 
with which he regulated the hissing contents of the 
frying-pan. The horses were turned to feed among the 
scattered bushes of a low, oozy meadow. A drowsy spring- 
like sultriness pervaded the air, and the voices of ten 
thousand young frogs and insects, just awakened into life, 
rose in varied chorus from the creek and the meadows. 

Scarcely were we seated when a visitor approached. 
This was an old Kanzas Indian,— a man of distinction, if 
one might judge from his dress. His head was shaved 



BREAKING THE ICE. ij 



and painted red, and from the tuft of hair remaining on 
the crown dangled several eagle's-feathers, and the tails 
of two or three rattlesnakes. His cheeks, too, were daubed 
with vermilion; his ears were adorned with green glass 
pendants; a collar of grizzly bears' claws surrounded his 
neck, and several large necklaces of wampum hung on his 
breast. Having shaken us by the hand with a grunt of 
salutation, the old man, dropping his red blanket from 
his shoulders, sat down cross-legged on the ground. We 
offered him a cup of sweetened water, at which he ejacu- 
lated, "Good!" and was beginning to tell us how great a 
man he was, and how many Pawnees he had killed, when 
suddenly a motley concourse appeared wading across the 
creek toward us. They filed past in rapid succession, 
men, women and children : some were on horseback, some 
on foot, but all were alike squalid and wretched. Old 
squaws, mounted astride of shaggy, meagre, little ponies, 
with perhaps one or two snake-eyed children seated behind 
them, clinging to their tattered blankets; tall, lank young 
men on foot, with bows and arrows in their hands ; and 
girls whose native ugliness not all the charms of glass 
beads and scarlet cloth could disguise, made up the pro- 
cession; although here and there was a man who, like 
our visitor, seemed to hold some rank in this respectable 
community. They were the dregs of the Kanzas nation, 
who, while their betters were gone to hunt the buffalo, had 
left the village on a begging expedition to Westport. 

When this ragamuffin horde had passed, we caught 
our horses, saddled, harnessed, and resumed our journey. 
Fording the creek, the low roofs of a number of rude 
buildings appeared, rising from a cluster of groves and 
woods on the left ; and riding up through a long lane 
amid a profusion of wild roses and early spring flowers, 

2 



l8 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

we found the log-church and schoolhouses belonging to 
the Methodist Shawanoe Mission. The Indians were on 
the point of gathering to a religious meeting. Some scores 
of them, tall men in half-civilized dress, were seated 
on wooden benches under the trees, while their horses 
were tied to the sheds and fences. Their chief. Parks, a 
remarkably large and athletic man, had just arrived from 
Westport, where he owns a trading establishment. Be- 
sides this, he has a large farm and a considerable number 
of slaves. Indeed the Shawanoes have made greater prog- 
ress in agriculture than any other tribe on the Missouri 
frontier; and both in appearance and in character form a 
marked contrast to our late acquaintance the Kansas. 

A few hours' ride brought us to the banks of the river 
Kanzas. Traversing the woods that lined it, and ploughing 
through the deep sand, we encamped not far from the 
bank, at the Lower Delaware crossing. Our tent was 
erected for the first time, on a meadow close to the 
woods, and the camp preparations being complete, we 
began to think of supper. An old Delaware woman, of 
some three hundred pounds' weight, sat in the porch of a lit- 
tle log-house, close to the water, and a very pretty half-breed 
girl was engaged, under her superintendence, in feeding 
a large flock of turkeys that were fluttering and gobbling 
about the door. But no offers of money, or even of tobacco, 
could induce her to part with one of her favorites; so I 
took my rifle, to see if the woods or the river could furnish 
us anything. A multitude of quails were plaintively whist- 
ling in the meadows ; but nothing appropriate to the rifle 
was to be seen, except three buzzards, seated on the spec- 
tral limbs of an old dead sycamore, that thrust itself out 
over the river from the dense sunny wall of fresh foliage. 
Their ugly heads were drawn down between their shoul- 



BREAKING THE ICE. 19 

ders, and they seemed to luxuriate in the soft sunshine 
that was pouring from the west. As they offered no 
epicurean temptations, I refrained from disturbing their 
enjoyment; but contented myself with admiring the calm 
beauty of the sunset, — for the river, eddying swiftly in 
deep purple shadows between the impending woods, formed 
a wild but tranquillizing scene. 

When I returned to the camp I found Shaw and an old 
Indian seated on the ground in close conference, passing the 
pipe between them. The old man was explaining that he 
loved the whites and had an especial partiality for tobacco. 
Deslauriers was arranging upon the ground our service 
of tin cups and plates; and as other viands were not to 
be had, he set before us a repast of biscuit and bacon, 
and a large pot of coffee. Unsheathing our knives, we 
attacked it, disposed of the greater part, and tossed the 
residue to the Indian. Meanwhile our horses, now hob- 
bled for the first time, stood among the trees with their 
fore-legs tied together, in great disgust and astonishment. 
They seemed by no means to relish this foretaste of what 
awaited them. Mine, in particular, had conceived a mor- 
tal aversion to the prairie life. One of them, christened 
Hendrick, an animal whose strength and hardihood were 
his only merits, and who yielded to nothing but the co- 
gent arguments of the whip, looked toward us with an 
indignant countenance, as if he meditated avenging his 
wrongs with a kick. The other, Pontiac, a good horse, 
though of plebeian lineage, stood with his head drooping 
and his mane hanging about his eyes, with the grieved 
and sulky air of a lubberly boy sent off to school. His 
forebodings were but too just ; for when I last heard from 
him, he was under the lash of an Ogillallah brave, on a war 
party against the Crows. 



20 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

As it grew dark and the voices of the whippoorwills 
succeeded the whistle of the quails, we removed our sad- 
dles to the tent to serve as pillows, spread our blankets 
upon the ground, and prepared to bivouac for the first 
time that season. Each man selected the place in the 
tent which he was to occupy for the journey. To Deslau- 
riers, however, was assigned the cart, into which he could 
creep in wet weather, and find a much better shelter than 
his bourgeois enjoyed in the tent. 

The river KanGs at this point forms the boundary line 
between the country of the Shawanoes and that of the 
Delawares. We crossed it on the following day, rafting 
over our horses and equipments with much difficulty, and 
unlading our cart in order to make our way up the steep 
ascent on the farther bank. It was a Sunday morning; 
warm, tranquil, and bright; and a perfect stillness reigned 
over the rougii inclosures and neglected fields of the Dela- 
wares, except the ceaseless hum and chirruping of myriads 
of insects. Now and then an Indian rode past on his way 
to the' meeting-house, or, through the dilapidated entrance 
of some shattered log-house, an old woman might be dis- 
cerned enjoying all the luxury of idleness. There was no 
village bell, for the Delawares have none; and yet upon 
that forlorn and rude settlement was the same spirit of 
Sabbath repose and tranquillity as in some New England 
village among the mountains of New Hampshire, or the 
Vermont woods. 

A military road led from this point to Fort Leavenworth, 
and for many miles the farms and cabins of the Delawares 
were scattered at short intervals on either hand. The 
little rude structures of logs, erected usually on the bor- 
ders of a tract of woods, made a picturesque feature in 
the landscape. Rut the scenery needed no foreign aid. 



BREAKIx\G THE ICE. 21 

Nature had clone enough for it; and the alternation of rich 
green prairies, and groves that stood in clusters, or lined the 
banks of the numerous little streams, had all the softened 
and polished beauty of a region that has been for centuries 
under the hand of man. At that early season, too, it was 
in the height of its freshness. The woods were flushed 
with the red buds of the maple; there were frequent flower- 
ing shrubs unknown in the East; and the green swells of 
the prairie were thickly studded with blossoms. 

Encamping near a spring, by the side of a hill, we re- 
sumed our journey in the morning, and early in the after- 
noon were within a few miles of Fort Leavenworth. The 
road crossed a stream densely bordered with trees, and 
running in the bottom of a deep woody hollow. We were 
about to descend into it when a wild and confused pro- 
cession appeared, passing through the water below and 
coming up the steep ascent toward us. We stopped to 
let them pass. They were Delawares, just returned from 
a hunting expedition. All, both men and women, were 
mounted on horseback, and drove along with them a con- 
siderable number of pack-mules, laden with the furs they 
had taken, together with the buffalo-robes, kettles, and 
other articles of their travelling equipment, which, as well 
as their clothing and their weapons, had a worn and dingy 
look, as if they had seen hard service of late. At the 
rear of the party was an old mail, who, as he came up, 
stopped his horse to speak to us. He rode a tough, shaggy 
pony., with mane and tail well knotted with burs, and a 
rusty Spanish bit in its mouth, to which, by way of reins, 
was attached a string of raw hide. His saddle, robbed 
probably from a Mexican, had no covering, being merely 
a tree of the Spanish form, with a piece of grizzly bear's 
skin laid over it, a pair of rude wooden stirrups attached, 



22 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 




and, in the absence of girth, a strap of hide passing around 
the horse's belly. The rider's dark features and keen snaky 
eye were unequivocally Indian. He wore a buckskin frock, 
which, like his fringed leggings, was well polished and 
blackened by grease and long service, and an old hand- 
kerchief was tied around his head. Resting on the saddle 
before him lay his rifle, a weapon in the use of which the 
Delawares are skilful, though, from its weight, the distant 
prairie Indians are too lazy to carry it. 



BREAKING THE ICE. 23 

"Who 's your chief? " he immediately inquired. 

Henry Chatillon pointed to us. The old Delaware fixed 
his eyes intently upon us for a moment, and then senten- 
tiously remarked, — 

" No good ! Too young!" With this flattering comment 
he left us and rode after his people. 

This tribe, the Delawares, once the peaceful allies of 
William Penn, the tributaries of the conquering Iroquois, 
are now the most adventurous and dreaded warriors upon 
the prairies. They make war upon remote tribes, the very 
names of which were unknown to their fathers in their an- 
cient seats in Pennsylvania, and they push these new quar- 
rels with true Indian rancor, sending out their war-parties 
as far as the Rocky Mountains, and into the Mexican ter- 
ritories. Their neighbors and former confederates, the 
Shawanoes, who are tolerable farmers, are in a prosper- 
ous condition; but the Delawares dwindle every year, from 
the number of men lost in their warlike expeditions. 

Soon after leaving this party we saw, stretching on the 
right, the forests that follow the course of the Missouri, 
and the deep woody channel through which at this point 
it runs. At a distance in front weje the white barracks 
of P'ort Leavenworth, just visible through the trees upon 
an eminence above a bend of the river. A wide green 
meadow, as level as a lake, lay between us and the Mis- 
souri, and upon this, close to a line of trees that bordered 
a little brook, stood the tent of the Captain and his com- 
panions, with their horses feeding around it; but they 
themselves were invisible. Wright, their muleteer, was 
there, seated on the tongue of the wagon, repairing his 
harness. Boisverd stood cleaning his rifle at the door of 
the tent, and Sorel lounged idly about. On closer exam- 
ination, however, we discovered the Captain's brother. Jack, 



24 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



sitting in the tent, at his old occupation of splicing trail- 
ropes. He welcomed us in his broad Irish brogue, and said 

that his brother was fishing in the river, and R gone 

to the garrison. They returned before sunset. Meanwhile 
we pitched our own tent not far off, and after supper a 
council was held, in which it was resolved to remain one 
day at Fort Leavenworth, and on the next to bid a final 
adieu to the frontier, or, in the phraseology of the region, 
to "jump off." Our deliberations were conducted by the 
ruddy light from a distant swell of the prairie, where the 
long dry grass of last summer was on fire. 




CHAPTER III. 



FORT LEAVENWORTH. 



ON the next morning we rode to Fort Leavenworth. 
Colonel, now General Kearney, to whom I had had 
the honor of an introduction when at St. Louis, was just 
arrived, and received us at his quarters with the courtesy 
habitual to him. Fort Leavenworth is in fact no fort, being 
without defensive works, except two block-houses. No ru- 
mors of war had as yet disturbed its tranquillity. In the 
square grassy area, surrounded by barracks and the quar- 
ters of the officers, the men were passing and repassing, 
or lounging among the trees ; although not many weeks 
afterwards it presented a different scene; for here the off- 
scourings of the frontier were congregated for the expedi- 
tion against Santa Fe. 

Passing through the garrison, we rode toward the Kick- 
apoo village, five or six miles beyond. The path, a rather 
dubious and uncertain one, led us along the ridge of high 
bluffs that border the Missouri; and, by looking to the 
right or to the left, we could enjoy a strange contrast of 
scenery. On the left stretched the prairie, rising into 
swells and undulations, thickly sprinkled with groves, or 
gracefully expanding into wide grassy basins, of miles in 
extent, while its curvatures, swelling against the horizon, 
were often surmounted by lines of sunny woods, — a scene 
to which the freshness of the season and the peculiar mel- 
lowness of the atmosphere gave additional softness. Below 



26 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

US, on the right, was a tract of ragged and broken woods. 
We could look down on the tops of the trees, some living 
and some dead ; some erect, others leaning at every angle, 
and others piled in masses together by the passage of a 
hurricane. Beyond their extreme verge the turbid waters 
of the Missouri were discernible through the boughs, roll- 
ing powerfully along at the foot of the woody declivities 
on its farther bank. 

The path soon after led inland ; and as we crossed an open 
meadow we saw a cluster of buildings on a rising ground 
before us, with a crowd of people surrounding them. They 
were the storehouse, cottage, and stables of the Kickapoo 
trader's establishment. Just at that moment, as it chanced, 
he was beset with half the Indians of the settlement. 
They had tied their wretched, neglected little ponies by 
dozens along the fences and out-houses, and were either 
lounging about the place, or crowding into the trading- 
house. Here were faces of various colors, — red, green, 
white, and black, — curiously intermingled and disposed over 
the visage in a variety of patterns. Calico shirts, red 
and blue blankets, brass ear-rings, wampum necklaces, 
appeared in profusion. The trader was a blue-eyed, open- 
faced man, who neither in his manners nor his appearance 
betrayed any of the roughness of the frontier; though just 
at present he was obliged to keep a lynx eye on his cus- 
tomers, who, men and women, were climbing on his coun- 
ter, and seating themselves among his boxes and bales. 

The village itself was not far off, and sufificiently illus- 
trated the condition of its unfortunate and self-abandoned 
occupants. Fancy to yourself a little swift stream work- 
ing its devious way down a woody valley; sometimes wholly 
hidden under logs and fallen trees, sometimes spreading 
into a broad, clear 'pool; and on its banks, in little nooks 



FORT LEAVENWORTH. 27 

cleared away among the trees, miniature log-houses, in utter 
ruin and neglect. A labyrinth of narrow, obstructed paths 
connected these habitations one with another. Sometimes 
we met a stray calf, a pig, or a pony, belonging to some 
of the villagers, who usually lay in the sun in front of 
their dwellings, and looked on us with cold, suspicious 
eyes as we approached. Farther on, in place of the log- 
huts of the Kickapoos, we found the piikivi lodges of their 
neighbors, the Pottawattamies, whose condition seemed no 
better than theirs. 

Growing tired at last, and exhausted by the excessive 
heat and sultriness of the day, we returned to our friend, 
the trader. By this time the crowd around him had dis- 
persed, and left him at leisure. He invited us to 
his cottage, — a little white-and-green building, in the style 
of the old French settlements, — and ushered us into a neat, 
well-furnished room. The blinds were closed, and the 
heat and glare of the sun excluded; the room was as cool 
as a cavern. It was neatly carpeted, too, and furnished in 
a manner that we hardly expected on the frontier. The 
sofas, chairs, tables, and a well-filled bookcase, would not 
have disgraced' an eastern city; though there were one or 
two little tokens that indicated the rather questionable 
civilization of the region. A pistol, loaded and capped, 
lay on the mantel-piece; and through the glass of the 
bookcase, peeping above the works of John Milton, glit- 
tered the handle of a very mischievous-looking knife. 

Our host went out, and returned with iced water, glasses, 
and a bottle of excellent claret, — a refreshment most wel- 
come in the extreme heat of the day; and soon after ap- 
peared a merry, laughing woman, who must have been, a 
year or two before, a very rich specimen of crcole beauty. 
She came to say that lunch was ready in the next room. Our 



28 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



hostess evidently lived on the sunny side of life, and troubled 
herself with none of its cares. She sat down and enter- 
tained us while we were at table with anecdotes of fish- 
ing parties, frolics, and the officers at the fort. Taking 
leave at length of the hospitable trader and his friend, we 
rode back to the garrison. 

Shaw passed on to the camp, while I remained to call 
upon Colonel Kearney. I found him still at table. There 
sat our friend the Captain, in the same remarkable habili- 
ments in which we saw him at Westport; the black pipe, 
however, being for the present laid aside. He dangled 
his little cap in his hand and talked of steeple-chases, 
touching occasionally upon his anticipated exploits in 

buffalo-hunting. There, too, was R , somewhat more 

elegantly attired. For the last time we tasted the luxuries 
of civilization, and drank adieus to it in wine good enough 
to make us regret the leave-taking. Then, mounting, we 
rode together to the camp, where everything was 
in readiness for departure on the morrow. 




CHAPTER IV. 

"JUMPING OFF." 

OUR transatlantic companions were well equipped for 
the journey. They had a wagon drawn by six mules, 
and crammed with provisions for six months, besides am- 
munition enough for a regiment, spare rifles and fowling- 
pieces, ropes and harness, personal baggage, and a miscel- 
laneous assortment of articles, which produced infinite em- 
barrassment. They had also decorated their persons with 
telescopes and portable compasses, and carried English 
double-barrelled rifles of sixteen to the pound calibre, slung 
to their saddles in dragoon fashion. 

By sunrise on the twenty-third of May we had break- 
fasted ; the tents were levelled, the animals saddled and 
harnessed, and all was prepared. '' Avaucc done! get up! " 
cried Deslauriers to his mule. Wright, our friends' mule- 
teer, after some swearing and lashing, got his insubordi- 
nate train into motion, and then the whole party filed from 
the ground. Thus we bade a long adieu to bed and board, 
and the principles of Blackstone's Commentaries. The day 
was a most auspicious one; and yet Shaw and I felt cer- 
tain misgivings, which in the sequel proved but too well 

founded. We had just learned that though R had 

taken it upon him to adopt this course without consult- 
ing us, not a single man in the party knew the way; and 
the absurdity of the proceeding soon became manifest. 
His plan was to strike the trail of several companies of 



30 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

dragoons, who last summer had made an expedition under 
Colonel Kearney to Fort Laramie, and by this means to 
reach the grand trail of the Oregon emigrants up the 
Platte. 

We rode for an hour or two, when a familiar cluster 
of buildings appeared on a little hill. "Hallo!" shouted 
the Kickapoo trader from over his fence, " where are you 
going.?" A few rather emphatic exclamations might have 
been heard among us, when we found that we had gone 
miles out of our way, and were not advanced an inch 
toward the Rocky Mountains. So we turned in the direc- 
tion the trader indicated; and with the sun for a guide, 
began to trace a "bee-line" across the prairies. We strug- 
gled through copses and lines of wood; we waded brooks 
and pools of water; we traversed prairies as green as an 
emerald expanding before us mile after mile, wider and 
more wild than the wastes Mazeppa rode over. 

" Man nor brute, 
Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot, 
Lay in the wild luxuriant soil; 
No sign of travel ; none of toil; 
The very air was mute." 

Riding in advance, as we passed over one of these great 
plains, we looked back and saw the line of scattered horse- 
men stretching for a mile or more; and far in the rear, 
against the horizon, the white wagons creeping slowly 
along. "Here we are at last!" shouted the Captain. 
And, in truth, we had struck upon the traces of a large 
body of horse. We turned joyfully and followed this 
new course, with tempers somewhat improved, and towards 
sunset encamped on a high swell of the prairie, at the 
foot of which a lazy stream soaked along through clumps 
of rank srass. It was o-ettins: dark. We turned the horses 



"JUMPING OFF." 31 



loose to feed. "Drive down the tent-pickets hard," said 
Henry Chatillon, "it is going to blow." We did so, and 
secured the tent as well as we could ; for the sky had 
changed totally, and a fresh, damp smell in the wind warned 
us that a stormy night was likely to succeed the hot, clear ^ 
day. The prairie also wore a new aspect, and its vast 
swells had grown black and sombre under the shadow of 
the clouds. The thunder soon began to growl at a dis- 
tance. Picketing and hobbling the horses among the rich 
grass at the foot of the slope where we encamped, we 
gained a shelter just as the rain began to fall; and sat at 
the opening of the tent, watching the proceedings of the 
Captain. In defiance of the rain, he was stalking among 
the horses, wrapped in an old Scotch plaid. An extreme 
solicitude tormented him, lest some of his favorites should 
escape, or some accident should befall them; and he cast 
an anxious eye towards three wolves who were sneaking 
along over the dreary surface of the plain, as if he dreaded 
some hostile demonstration on their part. 

On the next morning we had gone but a mile or two 
when we came to an extensive belt of woods, through the 
midst of which ran a stream, wide, deep, and of an appear- 
ance particularly muddy and treacherous. Deslauriers was 
in advance with his cart; he jerked his pipe from his mouth, 
lashed his mules, and poured forth a volley of Canadian 
ejaculations. In plunged the cart, but midway it stuck fast. 
He leaped out knee-deep in water, and by dint of sac7'-cs 
and a vigorous application of the whip, urged the mules 
out of the slough. Then approached the long team and 
heavy wagon of our friends; but it paused on the brink. 

"Now my advice is," — began the Captain, who had been 
anxiously contemplating the muddy gulf. 

" Drive on ! " cried R . 



32 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

But Wright, the muleteer, apparently had not as yet 
decided the point in his own mind; and he sat still in his 
seat, on one of the shaft-mules, whistling in a low, contem- 
plative strain to himself. 

"My advice is," resumed the Captain, "that we unload; 
for I '11 bet any man five pounds that if we try to go 
through we shall stick fast." 

"By the powers, we shall stick fast!" echoed Jack, the 
Captain's brother, shaking his large head with an air of 
firm conviction. 

" Drive on ! drive on ! " cried R , petulantly. 

i^Well," observed the Captain, turning to us as we sat 
looking on, much edified by this by-play among our con- 
federates, " I can only give my advice, and if people won't 
be reasonable, why, they won't, that's all!" 

Meanwhile Wright had apparently made up his mind; 
for he suddenly began to shout forth a volley of oaths 
and curses, that, compared with the French imprecations of 
Deslauriers, sounded like the roaring of heavy cannon after 
the popping and sputtering of a bunch of Chinese crackers. 
At the same time he discharged a shower of blows upon 
his mules, who hastily dived into the mud, and drew the 
wagon lumbering after them. For a moment the issue 
was doubtful. W'right writhed about in his saddle, and 
swore and lashed like a madman; but who can count on 
a team of half-broken mules.'' At the most critical point, 
when all should have been harmony and combined effort, 
the perverse brutes fell into disorder, and huddled to- 
gether in confusion on the farther bank. There was the 
wagon up to the hub in mud, and visibly settling every 
instant. There was nothing for it but to unload; then 
to dig away the mud from before the wheels with a spade, 
and lay a causeway of bushes and branches. This agree- 



"JUMPING OFF." 33 



able labor accomplished, the wagon at length emerged; 
but as some interruption of this sort occurred at least 
four or five times a day for a fortnight, our progress 
towards the Platte was not without its obstacles. 

We travelled six or seven miles farther, and "nooned" 
near a brook. On the point of resuming our journey, 
when the horses were all driven down to water, my home- 
sick charger, Pontiac, made a sudden leap across, and set 
off at a round trot for the settlements. I mounted my 
remaining horse and started in pursuit. Making a cir- 
cuit, I headed the runaway, hoping to drive him back to 
camp, but he instantly broke into a gallop, made a wide 
tour on the prairie, and got by me again. I tried this 
plan repeatedly with the same result, — Pontiac was evi- 
dently disgusted with the prairie; so I abandoned it and 
tried another, trotting along gently behind him, in hopes 
that I might quietly get near enough to seize the trail- 
rope which was fastened to his neck, and dragged about 
a dozen feet behind him. The chase grew interesting. 
For mile after mile I followed the rascal with the utmost 
care not to alarm him, and gradually got nearer, until at 
length old Hendrick's nose was fairly brushed by the whisk- 
ing tail of the unsuspecting Pontiac. Without drawing 
rein I slid softly to the ground; but my long, heavy rifle 
encumbered me, and the low sound it made in striking the 
horn of the saddle startled him, he pricked up his ears and 
sprang off at a run. "My friend," thought I, re-mounting, 
"do that again and I'll shoot you!" 

Fort Leavenworth was about forty miles distant, and 
thither I determined to follow him. T made up my mind 
to spend a solitary and supperless night, and then set 
out agam in the morning. One hope, however, remained. 
The creek where the wagon had stuck was just before 

3 



34 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

us; Pontiac might be thirsty with his run and stop there 
to drink. I kept as near him as possible, taking every 
precaution not to alarm him again; and the result proved 
as I had hoped, for he walked deliberately among the 
trees and stooped down to the water. I alighted, dragged 
old Hendrick through the mud, and with a feeling of infi- 
nite satisfaction picked up the slimy trail-rope, and twisted 
it three times round my hand. " Now let me see you get 
away again! " I thought as I remounted. But Pontiac was 
exceedingly reluctant to turn back; Hendrick, too, who had 
evidently flattered himself with vain hopes, showed the ut- 
most repugnance, and grumbled in a manner peculiar to 
himself at being compelled to face about. A smart cut 
of the whip restored his cheerfulness; and, dragging the 
recovered truant behind, I set out in search of the camp. 
An hour or two elapsed, when, near sunset, I saw the 
tents, standing on a swell of the prairie, beyond a line of 
woods, while the bands of horses were feeding in a low 

meadow close at hand. There sat Jack C -, cross-legged 

in the sun, splicing a trail-rope; and the rest were lying 
on the grass, smoking and telling stories. That night we 
enjoyed a serenade from the wolves, more lively than any 
with which they had yet favored us; and in the morning- 
one of the musicians appeared, not many rods from the 
tents, quietly seated among the horses, looking at us with 
a pair of large gray eyes; but perceiving a rifle levelled 
at him. he leaped up and made off in hot haste. 

I pass by the following day or two of our journey, for 
nothing occurred worthy of record. Should any one of my 
readers ever be impelled to visit the prairies, and should 
he choose the route of the Platte (the best, perhaps, that 
can be adopted), I can assure him that he need not think 
to enter at once upon the paradise of his imagination. A 



'•JUMPING OFF." 35 



dreary preliminary, a protracted crossing of the threshold, 
awaits him before he finds himself fairly upon the verge 
of the "great American desert," — those barren wastes, the 
haunts of the buffalo and the Indian, where the very shadow 
of civilization lies a hundred leagues behind him. The in- 
tervening country, the wide and fertile belt that extends for 
several hundred miles beyond the extreme frontier, will 
probably answer tolerably well to his preconceived ideas of 
the prairie; for this it is from which picturesque tourists, 
painters, poets, and novelists, who have seldom penetrated 
farther, have derived their conceptions of the whole region. 
If he has a painter's eye, he may find his period of proba- 
tion not wholly void of interest. The scenery, though 
tame, is graceful and pleasing. Here are level plains 
too wide for the eye to measure; green undulations, like 
motionless swells of the ocean; abundance of streams, fol- 
lowed through all their windings by lines of woods and 
scattered groves. But let him be as enthusiastic as he 
may, he will find enough to damp his ardor. His wagons 
will stick in the mud; his horses will break loose; harness 
will give way; and axle-trees prove unsound. His bed will 
be a soft one, consisting often of black mud of the richest 
consistency. As for food, he must content himself with 
biscuit and salt provisions; for strange as it may seem, this 
tract of country produces very little game. As he advances, 
indeed, he will see, mouldering in the grass by his path, the 
vast antlers of the elk, and farther on the whitened skulls 
of the buffalo, once swarming over this now deserted region. 
Perhaps, like us, he may journey for a fortnight, and see 
not so much as the hoof-print of a deer; in the spring, not 
even a prairie-hen is to be had. 

Yet, to compensate him for this unlooked-for deficiency 
of game, he will find himself beset with "varmints" in- 



36 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

numerable. The wolves will entertain him with a con- 
cert at night, and skulk around him by day just beyond 
rifle-shot ; his horse will step into badger-holes ; from every 
marsh and mud-puddle will arise the bellowing, croaking 
and trilling of legions of frogs, infinitely various in color, 
shape, and dimensions. A profusion of snakes will glide 
away from under his horse's feet, or quietly visit him in 
his tent at night ; while the pertinacious humming of un- 
numbered mosquitoes will banish sleep from his eyelids. 
When, thirsty with a long ride in the scorching sun over 
some boundless reach of prairie, he comes at length to a 
pool of water and alights to drink, he discovers a troop of 
young tadpoles sporting in the bottom of his cup. Add to 
this that, all the morning, the sun beats upon him with 
a sultry, penetrating heat, and that, with provoking regu- 
larity, at about four o'clock in the afternoon a thunder- 
storm rises and drenches him to the skin. 

One day, after a protracted morning's ride, we stopped to 
rest at noon upon the open prairie. No trees were in sight ; 
but close at hand a little dribbling brook was twisting from 
side to side through a hollow; now forming holes of stag- 
nant water, and now gliding over the mud in a scarcely 
perceptible current, among a growth of sickly bushes, and 
great clumps of tall, rank grass. The day was excessively 
hot and oppressive. The horses and mules were rolling 
on the prairie to refresh themselves, or feeding among the 
bushes in the hollow. We had dined ; and Deslauriers, 
puffing at his pipe, knelt on the grass, scrubbing our service 
of tin-plate. Shaw lay in the shade, under the cart, to 
rest for a while, before the word should be given to "catch 
up." Henry Chatillon, before lying down, was looking 
about for signs of snakes, the only living things that he 
feared, and uttering various ejaculations of disgust at find- 



"JUMPING OFF." 37 



ing several suspicious-looking holes close to the cart. I 
sat leaning against the wheel in a scanty strip of shade, 
making a pair of hobbles to replace those which my con- 
tumacious steed Pontiac had broken the night before. The 
camp of our friends, a rod or two distant, presented the 
same scene of lazy tranquillity. 

"Hallo! " cried Henry, looking up from his inspection of 
the snake-holes, "here comes the old Captain." 

The Captain approached, and stood for a moment contem- 
plating us in silence. 

"I say, Parkman, " he began, "look at Shaw there, asleep 
under the cart, with the tar dripping off the hub of the 
wheel on his shoulder." 

At this Shaw got up, with his eyes half opened, and feel- 
ing the part indicated, found his hand glued fast to his red 
flannel shirt. 

"He'll look well, when he gets among the squaws, won't 
he.-* " observed the captain, with a grin. 

He then crawled under the cart, and began to tell stories, 
of which his stock was inexhaustible. Yet every moment 
he would glance nervously at the horses. At last he jumped 
up in great excitement. "See that horse! There — -that 
fellow just walking over the hill ! By Jove ! he 's off. It 's 
your big horse, Shaw; no it isn't, it 's Jack's. Jack! Jack! 
hallo. Jack!" Jack, thus invoked, jumped up and stared 
vacantly at us. 

" Go and catch your horse, if you don't want to lose him," 
roared the Captain. 

Jack instantly set off at a run through the grass, his 
broad trousers flapping about his feet. The Captain gazed 
anxiously till he saw that the horse was caught ; then he 
sat down, with a countenance of thoughtfulness and care. 

" I tell you what it is," he said, "this will never do at all. 



■38 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

We shall lose every horse in the band some day or other, 
and then a pretty plight we should be in! Now I am con- 
vinced that the only way for us is to have every man in 
the camp stand horse-guard in rotation whenever we stop. 
Supposing a hundred Pawnees should jump up out of that 
ravine, all yelling and flapping their buffalo robes, in the 
way they do! Why, in two minutes, not a hoof would be 
in sight." We reminded the Captain that a hundred Paw- 
nees would probably demolish the horse-guard if he were to 
resist their depredations. 

"At any rate," pursued the Captain, evading the point, 
"our whole system is wrong; I'm convinced of it; it is 
totally unmilitary. Why, the way we travel, strung out 
over the prairie for a mile, an enemy might attack the 
foremost men, and cut them off before the rest could 
come up." 

"We are not in an enemy's country yet," said Shaw; 
"when we are we'll travel together." 

"Then," said the Captain, "we might be attacked in 
camp. We've no sentinels; we camp in disorder; no pre- 
cautions at all to guard against surprise. My own convic- 
tions are, that we ought to camp in a hollow-square, with 
the fires in the centre ; and have sentinels, and a regular 
password appointed for every night. Beside, there should 
be vedettes riding in advance, to find a place for the camp 
and give warning of an enemy. These are my convictions. 
I don't want to dictate to any man. I give advice to the 
best of my judgment, that's all,— and then let people do 
as they please." 

His plan of sending out vedettes seemed particularly dear 
to him ; and as no one else was disposed to second his views 
on this point, he took it into his head to ride forward that 
afternoon himself. 



"JUMPING OFF." 39 



"Come, Parkman, " said he, "will you go with me? " 

We set out together, and rode a mile or two in advance. 
The Captain, in the course of twenty years' service in the 
British army, had seen something of life; and being natu- 
rally a pleasant fellow, he was a very entertaining compan- 
ion. He cracked jokes and told stories for an hour or two ; 
until, looking back, we saw the prairie behind us stretching 
away to the horizon, without a horseman or a wagon in 
sight. 

"Now," said the Captain, " I think the vedettes had better 
stop till the main body comes up." 

I was of the same opinion. There was a thick growth of 
woods just before us, with a stream running through them. 
Having crossed this, we found on the other side a level 
meadow, half encircled by the trees ; and, fastening our 
horses to some bushes, we sat down on the grass, while 
with an old stump of a tree for a target, I began to dis- 
play the superiority of the renowned rifle of the back- 
woods over the foreign innovation borne by the Captain. 
At length voices could be heard in the distance, behind 
the trees. 

"There they come," said the Captain; "let 's go and see 
how they get through the creek." 

We mounted and rode to the bank of the stream, where 
the trail crossed it. It ran in a deep hollow, full of trees. 
As we looked down we saw a confused crowd of horsemen 
riding through the water; and among the dingy habiliments 
of our party glittered the uniforms of four dragoons. 

Shaw came whipping his horse up the bank, in advance of 
the rest, with a somewhat indignant countenance. The first 
word he spoke was a blessing fervently invoked on the head 

of R , who was riding, with a crest-fallen air, in the 

rear. Thanks to the ingenious devices of this gentleman, 



40 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



we had missed the track entirely, and wandered, not towards 
the Platte, but to the village of the Iowa Indians. This we 
learned from the dragoons, who had lately deserted from Fort 
Leavenworth. They told us that our best plan now was 
to keep to the northward until we should strike the trail 




formed by several parties of Oregon emigrants, who had 
that season set out from St. Joseph, in Missouri. 

In extremely bad temper, we encamped on this ill-starred 
spot, while the deserters, whose case admitted of no delay, 
rode rapidly forward. On the day following, striking the 
St. Joseph trail, we turned our horses' heads towards Fort 
Laramie, then about seven hundred miles to the westward. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE "BIG liLUE." 

THE great medley of Oregon and California emigrants 
at their camps around Independence had heard re- 
ports that several additional parties were on the point 
of setting out from St. Joseph farther to the northward. 
The prevailing impression was that these were Mormons, 
twenty-three hundred in number; and a great alarm was 
excited in consequence. The people of Illinois and Mis- 
souri, who composed by far the greater part of the emi- 
grants, have never been on the best terms with the " Latter 
Day Saints;" and it is notorious throughout the country 
how much blood has been spilt in their feuds, even far 
within the limits of the settlements. No one could pre- 
dict what would be the result when large armed bodies of 
these fanatics should encounter the most impetuous and 
reckless of their old enemies on the broad prairie, far 
beyond the reach of law or military force. The women 
and children at Independence raised a great outcry; the men 
themselves were seriously alarmed ; and as I learned, they 
sent to Colonel Kearney, requesting an escort of dragoons 
as far as the Platte. This was refused; and, as the sequel 
proved, there was no occasion for it. The St. Joseph emi- 
grants were as good Christians and as zealous Mormon- 
haters as the rest; and the very few families of the 
" Saints " who passed out this season by the route of the 
Platte remained behind until the great tide of eniiera- 



42 THE OREGON TRAIL. 



tion had gone by, — standing in quite as much awe of the 
"gentiles" as the latter did of them. 

We were now upon this St. Joseph trail. It was evident, 
by the traces, that large parties were a few days in advance 
of us ; and as we too supposed them to be Mormons, we had 
some apprehension of interruption. 

The journey was monotonous. One day we rode on for 
hours, without seeing a tree or a bush : before, behind, and 
on either side, stretched the vast expanse, rolling in a suc- 
cession of graceful swells, covered with the unbroken car- 
pet of fresh green grass. Here and there a crow, a raven, 
or a turkey-buzzard, relieved the uniformity. 

"What shall we do to-night for wood and water .-'" we 
began to ask of each other; for the sun was within an hour 
of setting. At length a dark green speck appeared, far off 
on the right : it was the top of a tree, peering over a swell 
of the prairie; and, leaving the trail, we made all haste 
towards it. It proved to be the vanguard of a cluster of 
bushes and low trees, that surrounded some pools of water 
in an extensive hollow; so we encamped on the rising 
ground near it. 

Shaw and I were sitting in the tent, when Deslauriers 
thrust his brown face and old felt hat into the opening, 
and, dilating his eyes to their utmost extent, announced 
supper. There were the tin cups and the iron spoons, 
arranged in order on the grass, and the coffee-pot pre- 
dominant in the midst. The meal was soon dispatched, 
but Henry Chatillon still sat cross-legged, dallying with the 
remnant of his coffee, the beverage in universal use upon 
the prairie, and an especial favorite with him. He preferred 
it in its virgin flavor, unimpaired by sugar or cream ; and 
on the present occasion it met his entire approval, being 
exceedingly strong, or, as he expressed it, " right black. " 



THE "BIG BLUE." 43 

It was a gorgeous sunset; and the ruddy glow of the sky 
was reflected from some extensive pools of water among the 
shadowy copses in the meadow below. 

"I must have a bath to-night," said Shaw. "How is it, 
Deslauriers.'' Any chance for a swim down there.'*" 

"Ah! 1 cannot tell; just as you please, Monsieur," re- 
plied Deslauriers, shrugging his shoulders, perplexed by 
his ignorance of English, and extremely anxious to con- 
form in all respects to the opinions and wishes of his 
bourgeois. 

"Look at his moccasin," said T. It had evidently been 
lately immersed in a profound abyss of black mud. 

"Come," said Shaw; "at any rate we can see for our- 
selves." 

We set out together; and as we approached the bushes, 
which were at some distance, we found the ground becom- 
ing rather treacherous. We could only get along by step- 
ping upon large clumps of tall rank grass, with fathomless 
gulfs between, like innumerable little quaking islands in 
an ocean of mud, where a false step would have involved 
our boots in a catastrophe like that which had befallen 
Deslauriers's moccasins. The thing looked desperate; we 
separated, to search in different directions, Shaw going off 
to the right, while I kept straight forward. At last I came 
to the edge of the bushes, — they were young water -willows 
covered with their caterpillar-like blossoms, but intervening 
between them and the last grass clump was a black and 
deep slough, over which, by a vigorous exertion, I con- 
trived to jump. Then I shouldered my way through the 
willows, trampling them down by main force, till I came 
to a wide stream of water, three inches deep, languidly 
creeping along over a bottom of sleek mud. My arrival 
produced a great commotion. A huge green bull-frog ut- 



44 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

tered an indignant croak, and jumped off the bank with a 
]oud splash; his webbed feet twinkled above the surface, as 
he jerked them energetically upward, and I could see him 
ensconcing himself in the unresisting slime at the bottom, 
whence several large air-bubbles struggled lazily to the top. 
Some little spotted frogs followed the patriarch's example; 
and then three turtles, not larger than a dollar, tumbled 
themselves off a broad "lily pad," where they had been 
reposing. At the same time a snake, gayly striped with 
black and yellow, glided out from the bank, and writhed 
across to the other side; and a small stagnant pool into 
which my foot had inadvertently pushed a stone was in- 
stantly alive with a congregation of black tadpoles. 

"Any chance for a bath where you are?" called out 
Shaw, from a distance. 

The answer was not encouraging. I retreated through 
the willows, and rejoining my companion, we proceeded 
to push our researches in company. Not far on the right, 
a rising ground, covered with trees and bushes, seemed to 
sink down abruptly to the water, and give hope of better 
success; so towards this we directed our steps. When we 
reached the place we found it no easy matter to get along 
between the hill and the water, impeded as we were by a 
growth of stiff, obstinate young birch -trees, laced together 
by grape-vines. In the twilight we now and then, to sup- 
port ourselves, snatched at the touch-me-not stem of some 
ancient sweetbrier. Shaw, who was in advance, suddenly 
uttered an emphatic monosyllable; and, looking up, I saw 
him with one hand grasping a sapling, and one loot im- 
mersed in the water, from which he had forgotten to 
withdraw it, his whole attention being engaged in con- 
templating the movements of a water-snake, about five 
feet long, curiously checkered with black and green, who 



THE "BIG BLUE." 45 



was deliberately swimming across the pool. There being 
no stick or stone at hand to pelt him with, we looked at him 
for a time in silent disgust, and then pushed forward. Our 
perseverance was at last rewarded; for several rods farther 
on, we emerged upon a little level grassy nook among the 
brushwood, and by an extraordinary dispensation of for- 
tune, the weeds and floating sticks, which elsewhere cov- 
ered the pool, seemed to have drawn apart, and left a few 
yards of clear water just in front of this favored spot. We 
sounded it with a stick; it was four feet deep: we lifted a 
specimen in our closed hands; it seemed reasonably trans- 
parent, so we decided that the time for action was arrived. 
But our ablutions were suddenly interrupted by ten thou- 
sand punctures, like poisoned needles, and the humming of 
myriads of overgrown mosquitoes, rising in all directions- 
from their native mud and swarming to the feast. We were 
fain to beat a retreat with all possible speed. 

We made towards the tents, much refreshed by the bath, 
which the heat of the weather, joined to our prejudices, had 
rendered very desirable. 

"What 's the matter with the Captain.^ look at him!" said 
Shaw. The Captain stood alone on the prairie, swinging 
his hat violently around his head, and lifting first one foot 
and then the other, without moving from the spot. First 
he looked down to the ground with an air of supreme abhor- 
rence; then he gazed upward with a perplexed and indig- 
nant countenance, as if trying to trace the flight of an 
unseen enemy. We called to know what was the matter; 
but he replied only by execrations directed against some 
unknown object. We approached, when our ears were 
saluted by a droning sound, as if twenty bee-hives 
had been overturned at once. The air above was full of 
large, black insects, in a state of great commotion, and 



46 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

multitudes were flying about just above the tops of the 
grass-blades. 

"Don't be afraid," called the Captain, observing" us re- 
coil. "The brutes won't sting." 

At this I knocked one down with my hat, and discovered 
him to be no other than a "dor-bug; " and, looking 
closer, we found the ground thickly perforated with their 
holes. 

We took a hasty leave of this flourishing colony, and 
walking up the rising ground to the tents, found Deslau- 
riers's fire still glowing brightly. We sat down around it, 
and Shaw began to expatiate on the admirable facilities for 
bathing that we had discovered, recommending the Captain 
by all means to go down there before breakfast in the morn- 
ing. The Captain was in the act of remarking that he 
couldn't have believed it possible, when he suddenly inter- 
rupted himself, and clapped his hand to his cheek, exclaim- 
ing that "those infernal humbugs were at him again. "»■ In 
fact, we began to hear sounds as if bullets were humming 
over our heads. In a moment something rapped me sharply 
on the forehead, then upon the neck, and immediately I felt 
an indefinite number of sharp, wiry claws in active motion, 
as if their cnvner were bent on pushing his explorations 
farther. I seized him, and dropped him into the fire. Our 
party speedily broke up, and we adjourned to our respective 
tents, where, closing the opening fast, we hoped to be- 
exempt from invasion. But all precaution was fruitless. 
The dor-bugs hummed through the tent, and marched over 
our faces until daylight; when, opening our blankets, we 
found several dozen clinging there with the utmost tenacity. 
The first object that met our eyes in the morning was Des- 
lauriers, who seemed to be apostrophizing his frying-pan, 
which he held by the handle at arm's length. It appeared 



THE "BIG BLUE." 47 



that he had left it at night by the fire; and the bottom 
was now covered with dor-bugs, firmly imbedded. Hun- 
dreds of others, curiously parched and shrivelled, lay scat- 
tered among the ashes. 

The horses and mules were turned loose to feed. We 
had just taken our seats at breakfast, or rather reclined 
in the classic mode, when an exclamation from Henry 
Chatillon, and a shout of alarm from the Captain, gave 
warning of some casualty, and looking up, we saw the 
whole band of animals, twenty-three in number, filing off 
for the settlements, the incorrigible Pontiac at their head, 
jumping along with hobbled feet, at a gait much more rapid 
than graceful. Three or four of us ran to cut them off, 
dashing as best we might through the tall grass, which 
was glittering with dew-drops. After a race of a mile or 
more, Shaw caught a horse. Tying the trail-rope by way 
of bridle round the animal's jaw, and leaping upon his 
back, he got in advance of the remaining fugitives, while 
we, soon bringing them together, drove them in a crowd 
up to the tents, where each man caught and saddled his 
own. Then were heard lamentations and curses; for half 
the horses had broke their hobbles, and many were seri- 
ously galled by attempting to run in fetters. 

It was late that morning before we were on the march; 
and early in the afternoon we were compelled to encamp, 
for a thunder-gust came up and suddenly enveloped us in 
whirling sheets of rain. With much ado we pitched our 
tents amid the tempest, and all night long the thunder 
bellowed and growled over our heads. In the morning 
light peaceful showers succeeded the cataracts of rain that 
had been drenching us through the canvas of our tents. 
About noon, when there were some treacherous indications 
of fair weather, we got in motion again. 



48 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Not a breath of air stirred over the free and open prairie; 
the clouds were like light piles of cotton; and where the 
blue sky was visible, it wore a hazy and languid aspect. 
The sun beat down upon us with a sultry, penetrating heat 
almost insupportable, and as our party crept slowly along 
over the interminable level, the horses hung their heads as 
they waded fetlock deep through the mud, and the men 
slouched into the easiest position upon the saddle. At 
last, towards evening, the old familiar black heads of 
thunder-clouds rose fast above the horizon, and the same 
deep muttering of distant thunder that had become the 
ordinary accompaniment of our afternoon's journey began to 
roll hoarsely over the prairie. Only a few minutes elapsed 
before the whole sky was densely shrouded, and the prairie 
and some clusters of woods in front assumed a purple hue 
beneath the inky shadows. Suddenly from the densest fold 
of the cloud the flash leaped out, quivering again and again 
down to the edge of the prairie; and at the same instant 
came the sharp burst and the long rolling peal of the 
thunder. A cool wind, filled with the smell of rain, just 
then overtook us, levelling the tall grass by the side of 
the path. 

" Come on ; we must ride for it ! " shouted Shaw, rushing 
by at full speed, his led horse snorting at his side. The 
whole party broke into full gallop, and made for the trees 
in front. Passing these, we found beyond them a meadow 
which they half inclosed. We rode pell-mell upon the 
ground, leaped from horseback, tore off our saddles, and 
in a moment each man was kneeling at his horse's feet. 
The hobbles were adjusted, and the animals turned loose; 
then as the wagons came wheeling rapidly to the spot, we 
seized upon the tent-poles, and just as the storm broke we 
were prepared to receive it. It came upon us almost with 



THE "BIG BLUE." 49 

the darkness of night: the trees, which were close at hand, 
were completely shrouded by the roaring torrents of rain. 

We were sitting in the tent when Deslauriers, with his 
broad felt hat hanging about his ears, and his shoulders 
glistening with rain, thrust in his head. 

"Voulez vous du souper, tout de suite? I can make fire, 
sous la charette — I b'lieve so — I try." 

"Never mind supper, man; come in out of the rain." 

Deslauriers accordingly crouched in the entrance, for 
modesty would not permit him to intrude farther. 

Our tent was none of the best defence against such a 
cataract. The rain could not enter bodily, but it beat 
through the canvas in a fine drizzle, that wetted us just 
as effectually. We sat upon our saddles with faces of the 
utmost surliness, while the water dropped from the visors 
of our caps and trickled down our cheeks. My india- 
rubber cloak conducted twenty little rapid streamlets to 
the ground; and Shaw's blanket coat was saturated like a 
sponge. But what most concerned us was the sight of 
several puddles of water rapidly accumulating; one, in par- 
ticular, that was gathering around the tent-pole, threatened 
to overspread the whole area within the tent, holding forth 
but an indifferent promise of a comfortable night's rest. 
Towards sunset, however, the storm ceased as suddenly as 
it began. A bright streak of clear red sky appeared above 
the western verge of the prairie; the horizontal rays of the 
sinking sun streamed through it, and glittered in a thou- 
sand prismatic colors upon the dripping groves and the 
prostrate grass. The pools in the tent dwindled and sunk 
into the saturated soil. 

But all our hopes were delusive. Scarcely had night set 
in when the tumult broke forth anew. The thunder here 
is not like the tame thunder of the Atlantic coast. Burst- 

4 



50 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ing with a terrific crash directly above our heads, it roared 
over the boundless waste of prairie, seeming to roll around 
the whole circle of the firmament with a peculiar and awful 
reverberation. The lightning flashed all night, playing with 
its livid glare upon the neighboring trees, revealing the vast 
expanse of the plain, and then leaving us shut in as if by a 
palpable wall of darkness. 

It did not disturb us much. Now and then a peal awak- 
ened us, and made us conscious of the electric battle that 
was raging, and of the floods that dashed upon the stanch 
canvas over our heads. We lay upon india-rubber cloths, 
placed between our blankets and the soil. For a while they 
excluded the water to admiration; but when at length it 
accumulated and began to run over the edges, they served 
equally well to retain it, so that towards the end of the 
night we were unconsciously reposing in small pools of 
rain. 

On finally awaking in the morning the prospect was not 
a cheerful one. The ram no longer poured in torrents; 
but it pattered with a quiet pertinacity upon the strained 
and saturated canvas. We disengaged ourselves from our 
blankets, every fibre of which glistened with little bead- 
like drops of water, and looked out in the vain hope of 
discovering some token of fair weather. The clouds, in 
lead-colored volumes, rested upon the dismal verge of the 
prairie, or hung sluggishly overhead, while the earth wore 
an aspect no more attractive than the heavens, exhibiting 
nothing but pools of water, grass beaten down, and mud 
well trampled by our mules and horses. Our companions' 
tent, with an air of forlorn and passive misery, and their 
wagons in like manner drenched and woe-begone, stood 
not far off. The Captain was just returning from his 
morning's inspection of the horses. He stalked through 



THE "BIG BLUE." 5 I 



the mist and rain with his plaid around his shoulders, his 
little pipe, dingy as an antiquarian relic, projecting from 
beneath his moustache, and his brother Jack at his heels. 

At noon the sky was clear, and we set out, trailing 
through mud and slime six inches deep. That night we 
were spared the customary infliction of the shower-bath. 

On the next afternoon we were moving slowly along, not 
far from a patch of woods which lay on the right. Jack 
C ■- rode a little in advance, — - 

"The livelong day he had not spoke;" 

when suddenly he faced about, pointed to the woods, and 
roared out to his brother, — 

" O Bill ! here 's a cow. " 

The Captain instantly galloped forward, and he and Jack 
made a vain attempt to capture the prize; but the cow, with 
a well-grounded distrust of their intentions, took refuge 

among the trees. R joined them, and they soon drove 

her out. We watched their evolutions as they galloped 
around her, trying in vain to noose her with their trail- 
ropes, which they had converted into laricttes for the occa- 
sion. At length they resorted to milder measures, and the 
cow was driven along with the party. Soon after the usual 
thunder-storm came up, the wind blowing with such fury 
that the streams of rain flew almost horizontally along the 
prairie, roaring like a cataract. The horses turned tail to 
the storm, and stood hanging their heads, bearing the in- 
fliction with an air of meekness and resignation; while we 
drew our heads between our shoulders, and crouched for- 
ward, so as to make our backs serve as a pent-house for 
the rest of our persons. Meanwhile the cow taking advan- 
tage of the tumult, ran off, to the great discomfiture of 
the Captain. In defiance of the storm, he pulled his cap 



52 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

tight over his brows, jerked a huge buffalo-pistol from his 
holster, and set out at full speed after her. This was 
the last we saw of them for some time, the mist and rain 
making an impenetrable veil ; but at length we heard the 
Captain's shout, and saw him looming through the tem- 
pest, the picture of a Hibernian cavalier, with his cocked 
pistol held aloft for safety's sake, and a countenance 
of anxiety and excitement. The cow trotted before him, 
but exhibited evident signs of an intention to run off again, 
and the Captain was roaring to us to head her. But the 
rain had got in behind our coat collars, and was travel- 
ling over our necks in numerous little streamlets, and 
being afraid to move our heads, for fear of admitting 
more, we sat stiff and immovable, looking at the Captain 
askance, and laughing at his frantic movements. At last 
the cow made a sudden plunge and ran off; the Captain 
grasped his pistol firmly, spurred his horse, and galloped 
after, with evident designs of mischief. In a moment we 
heard the faint I'eport, deadened by the rain, and then the 
conqueror and his victim reappeared, the latter shot through 
the body, and quite helpless. Not long after, the storm 
moderated, and we advanced again. The cow walked pain- 
fully along under the charge of Jack, to whom the Captain 
had committed her, while he himself rode forward in his 
old capacity of vedette. We were approaching a long line 
of trees, that followed a stream stretching across our path 
far in front, when we beheld the vedette galloping towards 
us apparently much excited, but with a broad grin on his 
face. 

"Let that cow drop behind!" he shouted to us; "here's 
her owners." 

And, in fact as we approached the line of trees, a large 
white object like a tent was visible behind them. On ap- 



THE "BIG BLUE." 53 



preaching, however, we found, instead of the expected Mor- 
mon camp, nothing but the lonely prairie, and a large white 
rock standing by the path. The cow, therefore, resumed 
her place in our procession. She walked on until we en- 
camped, when R , approaching with his English double- 
barrelled rifle took aim at her heart, and discharged into it 
first one bullet and then the other. She was then butchered 
on the most approved principles of woodcraft, and furnished 
a very welcome item to our somewhat limited bill of fare. 

In a day or two more we reached the river called the 
"Big Blue." By titles equally elegant, almost all the 
streams of this region are designated. We had struggled 
through ditches and little brooks all that morning; but 
on traversing the dense woods that lined the banks of the 
Blue, we found that more formidable difficulties awaited 
us, for the stream, swollen by the rains, was wide, deep, 
and rapid. 

No sooner were we on the spot than R flung off his 

clothes, and swam across, or splashed through the shallows, 
with the end of a rope between his teeth. We all looked 
on in admiration, wondering what might be the object of 
this energetic preparation; but soon we heard him shout- 
ing: "Give that rope a turn round that stump. You, Sorel ; 
do you hear.-* Look sharp, now, Boisverd. Come over to 
this side, some of you, and help me." The men to whom 
these orders were directed paid not the least attention to 
them, though they were poured out without pause or in- 
termission. Henry Chatillon directed the work, and it 

proceeded quietly and rapidly. R "s sharp, brattling 

voice might have been heard incessantly; and he was leap- 
ing about with the utmost activity. His commands were 
rather amusingly inconsistent; for when he saw that the 
men would not do as he told them he accommodated him- 



54 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

self to circumstances, and with the utmost vehemence or- 
dered them to do precisely that which they were at the 
time engaged upon, no doubt recollecting the story of 
Mahomet and the refractory mountain. Shaw smiled; 

K^ observed it, and, approaching with a countenance 

of indignation, began to vapor a little, but was instantly 
reduced to silence. 

The raft was at length complete. We piled our goods 
upon it, with the exception of our guns, which each man 
chose to retain in his own keeping. Sorel, Boisverd, 
Wright, and Deslauriers took their stations at the four 
corners, to hold it together, and swim across with it; and 
in a moment more all our earthly possessions were float- 
ing on the turbid waters of the Big Blue. We sat on 
the bank, anxiously watching the result, until we saw the 
raft safe landed in a little cove far down on the oppo- 
site bank. The empty wagons were easily passed across; 
and then, each man mounting a horse, we rode through 
the stream, the stray animals following of their own 
accord. 






»T- 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 

WE were now at the end of our solitary journeyings 
along the St. Joseph trail. On the evening of the 
twenty-third of May we encamped near its junction with 
the old legitimate trail of the Oregon emigrants. We had 
ridden long that afternoon, trying in vain to find wood 
and water, until at length we saw the sunset sky reflected 
from a pool encircled by bushes and rocks. The water 
lay in the bottom of a hollow, the smooth prairie grace- 
fully rising in ocean-like swells on every side. We pitched 
our tents by it ; not however before the keen eye of 
Henry Chatillon had discerned some unusual object upon 
the faintly defined outline of the distant swell. But in 
the moist, hazy atmosphere of the evening, nothing could 
be clearly distinguished As we lay around the fire after 
supper, a low and distant sound, strange enough amid the 
loneliness of the prairie, reached our ears, — peals of laugh- 
ter, and the faint voices of men and women. For eight 
days we had not encountered a human being, and this 
singular warning of their vicinity had an effect extremely 
impressive. 

About dark a sallow-faced fellow descended the hill on 
horseback, and splashing through the pool, rode up to the 
tents. He was enveloped in a huge cloak, and his broad 
felt hat was weeping about his ears with the drizzling mois- 
ture of the evening. Another followed, a stout, square-built, 
intelligent-looking man, who announced himself as leader 



56 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 




of an emigrant party, encamped a mile in advance of us. 
About twenty wagons, he said, were with him; the rest of 
his party were on the other side of the Big Blue, waiting 
for a woman who was in the pains of childbirth, and quar- 
relling meanwhile among themselves. 

These were the first emigrants that we had overtaken, al- 
though we had found abundant and melancholy traces of their 

progress throughout the 

^^j'T' -- ~ . course of the journey. 

Sometimes we passed 
the grave of one who 
had sickened and died 
on the way. The earth 
was usually torn up, and 
covered thickly with 
wolf-tracks. Some had 
escaped this violation. 
One morning, a piece of plank, standing upright on the 
summit of a grassy hill, attracted our notice, and riding 
up to it, we found the following words very roughly traced 
upon it, apparently with a red-hot iron: — - 

MARY ELLIS. 

Died May 7th, 1845. 

agf.d two months. 

Such tokens were of common occurrence. 

We were late in breaking up our camp on the following 
morning, and scarcely had we ridden a mile when we saw, 
far in advance of us, drawn against the horizon, a line of 
objects stretching at regular intervals along the level edge 
of the prairie. An intervening swell soon hid them from 
sight, until, ascending it a quarter of an hour after, we saw 
close before us the emigrant caravan, with its heavy white 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 57 

wagons creeping on in slow procession, and a large drove 
of cattle following behind. Half a dozen yellow-visaged 
Missourians, mounted on horseback, were cursing and shout- 
ing among them, their lank, angular proportions enveloped 
in brown homespun, evidently cut and adjusted by the hands 
of a domestic female tailor. As we approached, they called 
out to us: "How are ye, boys? Are ye for Oregon or 
California? " 

As we pushed rapidly by the wagons, children's faces 
were thrust out from the white coverings to look at us; 
while the care-worn, thin-featured matron, or the buxom 
girl, seated in front, suspended the knitting on which most 
of them were engaged, to stare at us with wondering curi- 
osity. By the side of each wagon stalked the proprietor, 
urging on his patient oxen, who shouldered heavily along, 
inch by inch, on their interminable journey. It was easy 
to see that fear and dissension prevailed among them; some 
of the men — but these, with one exception, were bachelors, 
— looked wistfully upon us as we rode lightly and swiftly 
by, and then impatiently at their own lumbering wagons and 
heavy-gaited oxen. Others were unwilling to advance at all, 
until the party they had left behind should have rejoined 
them. Many were murmuring against the leader they had 
chosen, and wished to depose him; and this discontent was 
fomented by some ambitious spirits, who had hopes of suc- 
ceeding in his place. The women were divided between 
regrets for the homes they had left and fear of the deserts 
and savages before them. 

We soon left them far behind, and hoped that we had 
taken a final leave; but our companions' wagon stuck so 
long in a deep muddy ditch, that before it was extricated 
the van of the emigrant caravan appeared again descend- 
ing a ridge close at hand Wagon after wagon i)lunged 



58 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 




through the mud; and as it was nearly noon, and the place 
promised shade and water, we saw with satisfaction that 
they were resolved to encamp. Soon the wagons were 
wheeled into a circle; the cattle were grazing over the 
meadow, and the men, with sour, sullen faces, were look- 
ing about for wood and water. 
They seemed to meet but indif- 
ferent success. As we left the 
ground, I saw a tall, slouching 
fellow, with the nasal accent of 
"down east," contemplating the 
contents of his tin cup, which 
he had just filled with water. 

"Look here, you," said he; 
"it's chock-full of animals!" 
The cup, as he held it out, 
/ exhibited in fact an extraordi- 

nary variety and profusion of 
animal and vegetable life. 

Riding up the little hill and looking back on the meadow, 
we could easily see that all was not right in the camp of the 
emigrants. The men were crowded together, and an angry 
discussion seemed to be going forward. R was miss- 
ing from his wonted place in the line, and the Captain told 
us that he had remained behind to get his horse shod by 
a blacksmith attached to the emigrant party. Something 
whispered in our ears that mischief was on foot; we kept 
on, however, and coming soon to a stream of tolerable 
water, we stopped to rest and dine. Still the absentee 
lingered behind. At last, at the distance of a mile, he 
and his horse suddenly appeared, sharply defined against 
the sky on the summit of a hill; and close behind, a huge 
white object rose slowly into view. 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 59 

"What is that blockhead bringing with him now? " 

A moment dispelled the mystery. Slowly and solemnly, 
one behind the other, four long trains of oxen and four emi- 
grant wagons rolled over the crest of the hill apd gravely 

descended, while R rode in state in the van. It seems 

that, during the process of shoeing the horse, the smothered 
dissensions among the emigrants suddenly broke into open 
rupture. Some insisted on pushing forward, some on re- 
maining where they were, and some on going back. Kears- 
ley, their captain, threw up his command in disgust. "And 
now, boys," said he, " if any of you are for going ahead, just 
you come along with me." 

Four wagons, with ten men, one woman, and one small 
child, made up the force of the "go-ahead" faction, and 

R , with his usual proclivity toward mischief, invited 

them to join our party. Fear of the Indians — for I can 
conceive no other motive — must have induced him to court 
so burdensome an alliance. At all events the proceeding 
was a cool one. The men who joined us, it is true, were 
all that could be desired, — rude indeed in manners, but 
frank, manly, and intelligent. To tell them we could 
not travel with them was out of the question. I merely 
reminded Kearsley that if his oxen could not keep up with 
our mules he must expect to be left behind, as we could 
not consent to be farther delayed on the journey; but he 
immediately replied that his oxen ''should keep up; and 
if they couldn't, why, he allowed, he'd find out how to 
make 'em." 

On the next day, as it chanced, our English companions 
broke the axle-tree of their wagon, and down came the 
whole cumbrous machine lumbering into the bed of a 
brook. Here was a day's work cut out for us. Meanwhile 
our emigrant associates kept on their way, and so vigor- 



6o THE OREGON TRAIL. 

OLisly did they urge forward their powerful oxen that, what 
with the broken axle-tree and other mishaps, it was full a 
week before we overtook them; when at length we discov- 
ered them, one afternoon, crawling quietly along the sandy 
brink of the Platte. But meanwhile various incidents oc- 
curred to ourselves. 

It was probable that at this stage of our journey the 
Pawnees would attempt to rob us. We began, therefore, 
to stand guard in turn, dividing the night into three 
watches, and appointing two men for each. Deslauriers and 
I held guard together. We did not march with military 
precision to and fro before the tents; our discipline was 
by no means so strict. We wrapped ourselves in our 
blankets and sat down by the fire; and Deslauriers, combin- 
ing his culinary functions with his duties as sentinel, em- 
ployed himself in boiling the head of an antelope for our 
breakfast. Yet we were models of vigilance in compari- 
son with some of the party; for the ordinary practice of 
the guard was to lay his rifle on the ground, and, envel- 
oping his nose in his blanket, meditate on his mistress, 
or whatever subject best pleased him. This is all well 
enough when among Indians who do not habitually pro- 
ceed further in their hostility than robbing travellers of 
their horses and mules, though, indeed, a Pawnee's for- 
bearance is not always to be trusted; but in certain re- 
gions farther to the west, the guard must beware how he 
exposes his person to the light of the fire, lest some keen- 
eyed skulking marksman should let fly a bullet or an arrow 
from the darkness. 

Among various tales that circulated around our camp-fire 
was one told by Boisverd, and not inappropriate here. He 
was trapping with several companions on the skirts of the 
Blackfoot country. The man on guard, knowing that it be- 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 6l 

hooved him to put forth his utmost precaution, kept aloof 
from the fire-light, and sat watching intently on all sides. 
At length he was aware of a dark, crouching figure, steal- 
ing noiselessly into the circle of the light. He hastily 
cocked his rifle, but the sharp click of the lock caught the 
ear of the Blackfoot, whose senses were all on the alert. 
Raising his arrow, already fitted to the string he shot it 
in the direction of the sound. So sure was his aim that 
he drove it through the throat of the unfortunate guard, 
and then, with a loud yell, bounded from the camp. 

As I looked at the partner of my watch, pufifing and blow- 
ing over his fire, it occurred to me that he might not prove 
the most efificient auxiliary in time of trouble. 

" Deslauriers," said I, "would you run away if the Paw- 
nees should fire at us?" 

"Ah! oui, oui, Monsieur!" he replied very decisively. 

At this instant a whimsical variety of voices, — barks, 
howls, yelps, and whines, all mingled together, — ■ sounded 
from the prairie, not far off, as if a conclave of wolves of 
every age and sex were assembled there. Deslauriers looked 
up from his work with a laugh, and began to imitate this 
medley of sounds with a ludicrous accuracy. At this they 
were repeated with redoubled emphasis, the musician being 
apparently indignant at the successful efforts of a rival. They 
all proceeded from the throat of one little wolf, not larger 
than a spaniel, seated by himself at some distance. He was 
of the species called the prairie-wolf, — a grim-visaged, but 
harmless little brute, whose worst propensity is creeping 
among horses and gnawing the ropes of raw hide by which 
they are picketed around the camp. Other beasts roam the 
prairies far more formidable in aspect and in character. 
These are the large white and gray wolves, whose deep 
howl we heard at intervals from far and near. 



62 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

At last I fell into a doze, and awaking from it found Des- 
lauriers fast asleep. Scandalized by this breach of disci- 
pline, I was about to stimulate his vigilance by stirring him 
with the stock of my rifle; but compassion prevailing, I de- 
termined to let him sleep a while, and then arouse him to 
administer a suitable reproof for such forgetfulness of duty. 
Now and then I walked the rounds among the silent horses, 
to see that all was right. The night was chill, damp, and 
dark, the dank grass bending under the icy dew-drops. At 
the distance of a rod or two the tents were invisible, and 
nothing could be seen but the obscure figures of the horses 
deeply breathing, and restlessly starting as they slept, or 
still slowly champing the grass. Far off, beyond the black 
outline of the prairie, there was a ruddy light, gradually 
increasing, like the glow of a conflagration ; until at length 
the broad disk of the moon, blood-red, and vastly magnified 
by the vapors, rose slowly upon the darkness, flecked by 
one or two little clouds, and as the light poured over the 
gloomy plain, a fierce and stern howl, close at hand, seemed 
to greet it as an unwelcome intruder. There was some- 
thing impressive and awful in the place and the hour; for 
I and the beasts were all that had consciousness for many 
a league around. 

Some days elapsed, and brought us near the Platte. Two 
men on horseback approached us one morning, and we 
watched them with the curiosity and interest that, u])on 
the solitude of the plains, such an encounter always excites. 
They were evidently whites, from their mode of riding, 
though, contrary to the usage of that region, neither of them 
carried a rifle. 

"Fools!" remarked Henry Chatillon, "to ride that way 
on the prairie; Pawnee find them — then they catch it." 

Pawnee had found them, and they had come very near 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 63 

''catching it; " indeed nothing saved them but the approach 
of our party. Shaw and I knew one of them, — a man named 
Turner whom we had seen at Westport. He and his com- 
panion belonged to an emigrant party encamped a few miles 
in advance, and had returned to look for some stray oxen, 
leaving their rifles, with characteristic rashness or igno- 
rance, behind them. Their neglect had nearly cost them 
dear; for, just before we came up, half a dozen Indians 
approached, and seeing them apparently defenceless, one 
of the rascals seized the bridle of Turner's horse and or- 
dered him to dismount. Turner was wholly unarmed; but 
the other jerked a pistol out of his pocket, at which the 
Pawnee recoiled; and just then some of our men appearing 
in the distance, the whole party whipped their rugged little 
horses and made off. In no way daunted. Turner foolishly 
persisted in going forward. 

Long after leaving him, and late that afternoon, in the 
midst of a gloomy and barren prairie, we came suddenly 
upon the great trail of the Pawnees, leading from their vil- 
lages on the Platte to their war and hunting grounds to the 
southward. Here every summer passes the motley con- 
course: thousands of savages, men, women, and children, 
horses and mules, laden with their weapons and imple- 
ments, and an innumerable multitude of unruly wolfish 
dogs, who have not acquired the civilized accomplishment 
of barking, but howl like their wild cousins of the prairie. 

The permanent winter villages of the Pawnees stand on 
the lower* Platte, but throughout the summer the greater 
part of the inhabitants are wandering over the plains, — a 
treacherous, cowardly banditti, who, by a thousand acts of 
pillage and murder, have deserved chastisement at the 
hands of government. Last year a Dakota warrior per- 
formed a notable exploit at one of these villages. He 



64 THE OREGON TRAIL. 



approached it alone, in the middle of a dark night, and 
clambering up the outside of one of the lodges, which are 
in the form of a half-sphere, looked in at the round hole 
made at the top for the escape of smoke. The dusky light 
from the embers showed him the forms of the sleeping in- 
mates ; and dropping lightly through the opening, he un- 
sheathed his knife, and stirring the fire, coolly selected his 
victims. One by one he stabbed and scalped them ; when 
a child suddenly awoke and screamed. He rushed from the 
lodge, yelled a Siou.x war-cry, shouted his name in triumph 
and defiance, and darted out upon the dark prairie, leaving 
the whole village behind him in a tumult, with the howl- 
ing and baying of dogs, the screams of women, and the 
yells of the enraged warriors. 

Our friend Kearsley, as we learned on rejoining him, 
signalized himself by a less bloody achievement. He and 
his men were good woodsmen, well skilled in the use of 
the rifie, but found themselves wholly out of their element 
on the prairie. None of them had ever seen a buffalo; and 
they had very vague conceptions of his nature and appear- 
ance. On the day after they reached the Platte, looking 
towards a distant swell they beheld a multitude of little 
black specks in motion upon its surface. 

"Take your rifles, boys," said Kearsley, "and we'll have 
fresh meat for supper." This inducement was quite suffi- 
cient. The ten men left their wagons, and set out in hot 
haste, some on horseback and some on foot, in pursuit of 
the supposed buffalo. Meanwhile a high grassy ridge shut 
the game from view; but mounting it after half an hour's 
running and riding, they found themselves suddenly con- 
fronted by about thirty mounted Pawnees. Amazement and 
consternation were mutual. Having nothing but their bows 
and arrows, the Indians thought their hour was come, and 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 65 

the fate that they were conscious of richly deserving about 
to overtake them. So they began, one and all, to shout 
forth the most cordial salutations, running up v\^ith ex- 
treme earnestness to shake hands with the Missourians, 
who were as much rejoiced as they were to escape the ex- 
pected conflict. 

A low, undulating line of sand-hills bounded the horizon 
•before us. That day we rode ten hours, and it was dusk 
before we entered the hollows and gorges of these gloomy 
little hills. At length we gained the summit, and the long- 
expected valley of the Platte lay before us. We all drew 
rein, and sat joyfully looking down upon the prospect. It 
was right welcome, — strange, too, and striking to the imagi- 
nation; and yet it had not one picturesque or beautiful feat- 
ure ; nor had it any of the features of grandeur, other than 
its vast extent, its solitude, and its wildness. For league 
after league, a plain as level as a lake was outspread be- 
neath us; here and there the Platte, divided into a dozen 
thread-like sluices, was traversing it, and an occasional 
clump of wood, rising in the midst like a shadowy island, 
relieved the monotony of the waste. No living thing was 
moving throughout the vast landscape, except the lizards 
that darted over the sand and through the rank grass and 
prickly pears at our feet. 

We had passed the more tedious part of the journey; but 
four hundred miles still intervened between us and Fort 
Laramie; and to reach that point cost us the travel of three 
more weeks. During the whole of this time we were pass- 
ing up the middle of a long, narrow, sandy plain, reaching 
like an outstretched belt nearly to the Rocky Mountains. 
Two lines of sandhills, broken often into the wildest and 
most fantastic forms, flanked the valley at the distance of 
a mile or two on the right and left; while beyond them lay 

5 



66 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



a barren trackless waste, extending for hundreds of miles to 
the Arkansas on the one side and the Missouri on the other. 
Before and behind us the level monotony of the plain was 
unbroken as far as the eye could reach. Sometimes it glared 
in the sun, an expanse of hot, bare sand; sometimes it was 
veiled by long coarse grass. Skulls and whitening bones 

of buflfalo were scat- 
tered everywhere ; the 
ground was tracked by 
myriads of them, and 
often covered with 
the circular indenta- 
tions where the bulls 
had wallowed in the 
hot weather. From 
every gorge and ra- 
vine opening from 
the hills, descended 
deep, well-worn paths, 
where the buffalo is- 
sue twice a day in regular procession to drink in the Platte. 
The river itself runs through the midst, a thin sheet of rapid, 
turbid water, half a mile wide, and scarcely two feet deep. Its 
low banks, for the most part without a bush or a tree, are 
of loose sand, with which the stream is so charged that it 
grates on the teeth in drinking. The naked landscape is, 
of itself, dreary and monotonous enough; and yet the wild 
beasts and wild men that frequent the valley of the Platte 
make it a scene of interest and excitement to the traveller. 
Of those who have journeyed there, scarcely one, perhaps, 
fails to look back with fond regret to his horse and his rifle. 
Early in the morning after we reached the Platte, a long- 
procession of squalid savages approached our camp. Each 




THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 67 

was on foot, leading his horse by a rope of bull-hide. His 
attire consisted merely of a scanty cincture, and an old 
buffalo robe, tattered and begrimed by use, which hung 
over his shoulders. His head was close shaven, except a 
ridge of hair reaching over the crown from the middle of 
the forehead, very much like the long bristles on the back 
of a hyena, and he carried his bow and arrows in his hand, 
while his meagre little horse was laden with dried buffalo 
meat, the produce of his hunting. Such were the first speci- 
mens that we met — and very indifferent ones they were — 
of the genuine savages of the plains. 

They were the Pawnees whom Kearsley had encountered 
the day before, and belonged to a large hunting party, 
known to be ranging the prairie in the vicinity. They 
strode rapidly by, within a furlong of our tents, not paus- 
ing or looking towards us, after the manner of Indians 
when meditating mischief or conscious of ill desert. I 
went out to meet them, and had an amicable conference 
with the chief, presenting him with half a pound of tobacco, 
at which unmerited bounty he expressed much gratification. 
These fellows, or some of their companions, had committed 
a dastardly outrage upon an emigrant party in advance of 
us. Two men, at a distance from the rest, were seized by 
them, but, lashing their horses, they broke away and fled. 
At this the Pawnees raised the yell and shot at them, trans- 
fixing the hindmost through the back with several arrows, 
while his companion galloped away and brought in the news 
to his party. The panic-stricken emigrants remained for 
several days in camp, not daring even to go out in quest of 
the dead body. 

Our New England climate is mild and equable compared 
with that of the Platte. This very morning, for instance, 
was close and sultry, the sun rising with a faint oppressive 



68 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

heat; when suddenly darkness gathered in the west, and a 
furious blast of sleet and hail drove full in our faces, icy 
cold, and urged with such demoniac vehemence that it felt 
like a storm of needles. It was curious to see the horses; 
they faced about in extreme displeasure, holding their tails 
like whipped dogs, and shivering as the angry gusts, howl- 
ing louder than a concert of wolves, swept over us. Wright's 
long train of mules came sweepng round before the storm, 
like a flight of snow-birds driven by a winter tempest. Thus 
we all remained stationary for some minutes, crouching close 
to our horses' necks, much too surly to speak, though once 
the Captain looked up from between the collars of his coat, 
his face blood-red, and the muscles of his mouth contracted 
by the cold into a most ludicrous grin of agony. He grum- 
bled something that sounded like a curse, directed, as we be- 
lieved, against the unhappy hour when he had first thought of 
leaving home. The thing was too good to last long; and the 
instant the puffs of wind subsided we pitched our tents, and 
remained in camp for the rest of a gloomy and lowering 
day. The emigrants also encamped near at hand. We 
being first on the ground, had appropriated all the wood 
within reach; so that our fire alone blazed cheerily. Around 
it soon gathered a group of uncouth figures, shivering in 
the drizzling rain. Conspicuous among them were two or 
three of the half-savage men who spend their reckless lives 
in trapping among the Rocky Mountains, or in trading for 
the Fur Company in the Indian villages. They were all 
of Canadian extraction; their hard, weather-beaten faces 
and bushy moustaches looked out from beneath the hoods 
of their white capotes with a bad and brutish expression, 
as if their owners might be the willing agents of any 
villany. And such in fact is the character of many of 
these men. 



THE PLATTE AND THE DESERT. 69 

On the day following we overtook Kearsley's wagons, 
and thenceforward for a week or two, we were fellow- 
travellers. One good effect, at least, resulted from the 
alliance; it materially diminished the fatigues of standing 
guard; for the party being now more numerous, there were 
longer intervals between each man's turns of duty. 




CHAPTER VII. 



THE BUFFALO 



FOUR days on the Platte, and yet no buffalo! Last year's 
signs of them were provokingly abundant; and wood 
being extremely scarce, we found an admirable substitute in 
the bois dc vaclic, which burns like peat, producing no un- 
pleasant effects. The wagons one morning had left the camp; 
Shaw and I were already on horseback, but Henry Chatillon 
still sat cross-legged by the dead embers of the fire, play- 
ing pensively with the lock of his rifle, while his sturdy 
Wyandot pony stood quietly behind him, looking over his 
head. At last he got up, patted the neck of the pony 
(which, from an exaggerated appreciation of his value, 
he had christened "Five Hundred Dollar"), and then 
mounted, with a melancholy air. 

"What is it, Henry.? " 

"Ah, I feel lonesome; I never been here before but I see 
away yonder over the buttes, and down there on the prairie, 
black — all black with buffalo." 

In the afternoon he and I left the party in search of an 
antelope, until, at the distance of a mile or two on the 
right, the tall white wagons and the little black specks ot 
horsemen were just visible, so slowly advancing that they 
seemed motionless; and far on the left rose the broken line 
of scorched, desolate sand-hills. The vast plain waved with 
tall rank grass, that swept our horses' bellies; it swayed 
to and fro in billows with the light breeze, and far and 



THE BUFFALO. 71 



near antelope and wolves were moving through it, the hairy 
backs of the latter alternately appearing and disappearing, 
as they bounded awkwardly along; while the antelope, 
with the simple curiosity peculiar to them, would often 
approach us closely, their little horns and white throats 
just visible above the grass tops, as they gazed eagerly at 
us with their round black eyes. 

I dismounted, and amused myself with firing at the 
wolves. Henry attentively scrutinized the surrounding 
landscape; at length he gave a shout, and called on me 
to mount again, pointing in the direction of the sand-hills. 
A mile and a half from us two black specks slowly trav- 
ersed the bare, glaring face of one of them, and disappeared 
behind the summit. "Let us go!" cried Henry, belabor- 
ing the sides of "Five Hundred Dollar;" and I following 
in his wake, we galloped rapidly through the rank grass 
toward the base of the hills. 

From one of their openings descended a deep ravine, 
widening as it issued on the prairie. We entered it, and 
■galloping up, in a moment were surrounded by the bleak 
sand-hills. Half of their steep sides were bare; the rest 
were scantily clothed with clumps of grass, and various 
uncouth plants, conspicuous among which appeared the 
reptile-like prickly-pear. They were gashed with number- 
less ravines; and as the sky had suddenly darkened, and a 
cold, gusty wind arisen, the strange shrubs and the dreary 
hills looked doubly wild and desolate. But Henry's face 
was all eagerness. He tore off a little hair from the piece 
of buffalo-robe under his saddle, and threw it up, to show 
the course of the wind. It blew directly before us. The 
game was therefore to leeward, and it was necessary to 
make our best speed to get round them. 

We scrambled from this ravine, and galloping away 



72 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

through the hollows soon found another, winding like a 
snake among the hills, and so deep that it completely con- 
cealed us. We rode up the bottom of it, glancing through 
the bushes at its edge, till Henry abruptly jerked his rein 
and slid out of his saddle. Full a quarter of a mile dis- 
tant, on the outline of the farthest hill, a long procession 
of buffalo were walking, in Indian file, with the utmost 
gravity and deliberation; then more appeared, clambering 
from a hollow not far off, and ascending, one behind the 
other, the grassy slope of another hill; then a shaggy head 
and a pair of short broken horns issued out of a ravine close 
at hand, and with a slow, stately step, one by one, the enor- 
mous brutes came into view, taking their way across the 
valley, wholly unconscious of an enemy. In a moment 
Henry was worming his way, lying flat on the ground, 
through grass and prickly-pears, towards his unsuspecting 
victims. He had with him both my rifle and his own. 
He was soon out of sight, and still the buffalo kept issu- 
ing into the valley. For a long time all was silent; I sat 
holding his horse, and wondering what he was about, when 
suddenly in rapid succession, came the sharp reports of the 
two rifles, and the whole line of buffalo, quickening their 
pace into a clumsy trot, gradually disappeared over the 
ridge of the hill. Henry rose to his feet, and stood look- 
ing after them. 

"You have missed them," said I. 

"Yes," said Henry; "let us go." He descended into 
the ravine, loaded the rifles, and mounted his horse. 

We rode up the hill after the buffalo. The herd was out 
of sight when we reached the top, but lying on the grass, 
not far off, was one quite lifeless, and another violently 
struggling in the death agony. 

" You see I miss him ! " remarked Henry. He had fired 

• 



THE BUFFALO. 73 



from a distance of more than a hundred and fifty yards, and 
both balls had passed through the lungs, the true mark in 
shooting buffalo. 

The darkness increased, and a driving storm came on. 
Tying our horses to the horns of the victims, Henry began 
the bloody work of dissection, slashing away with the 
science of a connoisseur, while I vainly tried to imitate 
him. Old Hendrick recoiled with horror and indignation 
when I endeavored to tie the meat to the strings of raw 
hide, always carried for this purpose, dangling at the back 
of the saddle. After some difficulty we overcame his scru- 
ples ; and, heavily burdened with the more eligible portions 
of the buffalo, we set out on our return. Scarcely had we 
emerged from the labyrinth of gorges and ravines, and 
issued upon the open prairie, when the prickling sleet 
came driving, gust upon gust, directly in our faces. It 
was strangely dark, though wanting still an hour of sun- 
set. The freezing storm soon penetrated to the skin, but 
the uneasy trot of our heavy-gaited horses kept us warm 
enough, as we forced them unwillingly in the teeth of the 
sleet and rain by the powerful suasion of our Indian whips. 
The prairie in this place was hard and level. A flourishing 
colony of prairie-dogs had burrowed into it in every direc- 
tion, and the little mounds of fresh earth around their 
holes were about as numerous as the hills in a corn-field; 
but not a yelp was to be heard; not the nose of a single 
citizen was visible; all had retired to the depths of their 
burrows, and we envied them their dry and comfortable 
habitations. An hour's hard riding showed us our tent 
dimly looming through the storm, one side puffed out by 
the force of the wind, and the other collapsed in propor- 
tion, while the disconsolate horses stood shivering close 
around, and the wind kept up a dismal whistling in the 



74 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

boughs of three old half-dead trees above. Shaw, like a 
patriarch, sat on his saddle in the entrance, with a pipe in 
his mouth and his arms folded, contemplating with cool 
satisfaction the piles of meat that we flung on the ground 
before him. A dark and dreary night succeeded ; but the 
sun rose with a heat so sultry and languid that the Cap- 
tain excused himself on that account from waylaying an 
old buffalo bull, who with stupid gravity was walking over 
the prairie to drink at the river. So much for the climate 
of the Platte. 

But it was not the weather alone that had produced this 
sudden abatement of the sportsman-like zeal which the Cap- 
tain had always professed. He had been out on the after- 
noon before, together with several members of his party; 
but their hunting was attended with no other result than 
the loss of one of their best horses, severely injured by 
Sorel, in vainly chasing a wounded bull. The Captain, 
whose ideas of hard riding were all derived from transat- 
lantic sources, expressed the utmost amazement at the 
feats of Sorel, who went leaping ravines, and dashing at 
full speed up and down the sides of precipitous hills, lash- 
ing his horse with the recklessness of a Rocky Mountain 
rider. Unfortunately for the poor animal, he was the pro- 
perty of R , against whom Sorel entertained an un- 
bounded aversion. The Captain himself, it seemed, had 
also attempted to "run" a buffalo, but though a good and 
practised horseman, he had soon given over the attempt, 
being astonished and utterly disgusted at the nature of 
the ground he was required to ride over. 

"Here's old Papin and Frederic, down from P'ort Lara- 
mie," shouted Henry, as we returned from a reconnoitring 
tour on the next morning. We had for some days expected 
this encounter. Papin was the bourgeois, or "boss," of Fort 



THE BUFFALO. 



75 




Laramie. He had come down the river with the buffalo- 
robes and the beaver, the produce of the last winter's trad- 
ing. I had among our baggage a letter which I wished to 
commit to his hands; so requesting Henry to detain the 
boats if he could until my return, I set out after the wagons. 
They were about four 
miles in advance. In 
half an hour I overtook 
them, got the letter, 
trotted back upon the 
trail, and looking care- 
fully, as I rode, saw 
a patch of broken storm- 
blasted trees, and mov- 
ing near them, some 
little black specks like 
men and horses. Arriv- 
ing at the place, I found 
a strange assembly. 
The boats, eleven in 

number, deep-laden with the skins, hugged close to the 
shore, to escape being borne down by the swift current. 
The rowers, swarthy, ignoble Mexicans, turned up their 
brutish faces to look, as I reached the bank. Papin sat 
in the middle of one of the boats, upon the canvas covering 
that protected the cargo. He was a stout, robust fellow, 
with a little gray eye that had a peculiarly sly twinkle. 
"Frederic," also, stretched his tall, raw-boned proportions 
close by the bourgeois, and " mountain men " completed 
the group : some lounging in the boats, some strolling on 
shore; some attired in gayly painted buffalo robes, like 
Indian dandies; some with hair saturated with red paint, 
and plastered with glue to their temples; and one bedaubed 



-J^ THE OREGON TRAIL. 

with vermilion upon the forehead and each cheek. They 
were a mongrel race; yet the French blood seemed to pre- 
dominate; in a few, indeed, might be seen the black, snaky 
eye of the Indian half-breed, and one and all, they seemed 
to aim at assimilating themselves to their red associates. 

I shook hands with the bourgeois, and delivered the let- 
ter; then the boats swung round into the stream and floated 
away. They had reason for haste, for already the voyage 
from Fort Laramie had occupied a full month, and the river 
was growing daily more shallow. Fifty times a day the 
boats had been aground; indeed, those who navigate the 
Platte invariably spend half their time upon sand-bars. 
Two of these boats, the property of private traders, after- 
wards separating from the rest, got hopelessly involved in 
the shallows not very far from the Pawnee villages, and 
were soon surrounded by a swarm of the inhabitants. They 
carried off everything that they thought valuable, including 
most of the robes ; and amused themselves by tying up the 
men left on guard, and soundly whipping them with sticks. 

We encamped that night upon the bank of the river. 
Among the emigrants was an overgrown boy, some eigh- 
teen years old, with a head as round and about as large as 
a pumpkin, and fever-and-ague fits had dyed his face to a 
corresponding color. He wore an old white hat, tied under 
his chin with a handkerchief; his body was short and stout, 
but his legs were of disproportioned and appalling length. 
I observed him at sunset, breasting the hill with gigantic 
strides, and standing against the sky on the summit, like 
a colossal pair of tongs. In a moment after we heard him 
screaming frantically behind the ridge, and nothing doubt- 
ing that he was in the clutches of Indians or grizzly 
bears, some of the party caught up their rifles and ran to 
the rescue. His outcries, however, were but an ebullition 



THE BUFFALO. -J-j 



of joyous excitement ; he had chased two wolf pups to their 
burrow, and was on his knees, grubbing away like a dog at 
the mouth of the hole to get at them. 

Before morning he caused more serious disquiet in the 
camp. It was his turn to hold the middle-guard; but no 
sooner was he called up than he coolly arranged a pair of 
saddle-bags under a wagon, laid his head upon them, closed 
his eyes, opened his mouth, and fell asleep. The guard on 
our side of the camp, thinking it no part of his duty to look 
after the cattle of the emigrants, contented himself with 
watching our own horses and mules; the wolves, he said, 
were unusually noisy ; still no mischief was foreboded, but 
when the sun rose not a hoof or horn was in sight. The 
cattle were gone. While Tom was quietly slumbering, 
the wolves had driven them away. 

Then we reaped the fruits of R 's precious plan of 

travelling in company with emigrants. To leave them in 
their distress was not to be thought of, and we felt bound 
to wait until the cattle could be searched for, and if possi- 
ble, recovered. But the reader may be curious to know 
what punishment awaited the faithless Tom. By the whole- 
some law of the prairie, he who falls asleep on guard is con- 
demned to walk all day, leading his horse by the bridle; 
and we found much fault with our companions for not en- 
forcing such a sentence on the offender. Nevertheless, had 
he been of our own party, I have no doubt that he would 
in like manner have escaped scot-free. But the emigrants 
went farther than mere forbearance; they decreed that since 
Tom couldn't stand guard without falling asleep, he 
shouldn't stand guard at all, and henceforward his slum- 
bers were unbroken. Establishing such a premium on drow- 
siness could have no very beneficial effect upon the vigilance 
of our sentinels; for it is far from agreeable, after riding 



78 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

from sunrise to sunset, to feel your slumbers interrupted by 
the but of a rifle nudging your side, and a sleepy voice 
growling in your ear that you must get up, to shiver and 
freeze for three weary hours at midnight. 

"Buffalo! buffalo!" It w^as but a grim old bull, roaming 
the prairie by himself in misanthropic seclusion ; but there 
might be more behind the hills. Dreading the monotony 
and languor of the camp, Shaw and I saddled our horses, 
buckled our holsters in their places, and set out with Henry 
Chatillon in search of the game. Henry, not intending to 
take part in the chase, but merely conducting us, carried his 
rifle with him while we left ours behind as incumbrances. 
We rode for some five or six miles, and saw no living thing 
but wolves, snakes, and prairie-dogs. 

"This won't do at all," said Shaw. 

" What won't do.' " 

"There's no wood about here to make a litter for the 
wounded man; I have an idea that one of us will need 
something of the sort before the day is over." 

There was some foundation for such an idea, for the 
ground was none of the best for a race, and grew worse 
continually as we proceeded; indeed, it soon became des- 
perately bad, consisting of abrupt hills and deep hollows, 
cut by frequent ravines not easy to pass. At length, a mile 
in advance, we saw a band of bulls. Some were scattered 
grazing over a green declivity, while the rest were crowded 
together in the wide hollow below. Making a circuit, to 
keep out of sight, we rode towards them, until we ascended 
a hill within a furlong of them, beyond which nothing in- 
tervened that could possibly screen us from their view. We 
dismounted behind the ridge, just out of sight, drew our 
saddle-girths, examined our pistols, and mounting again, 
rode over the hill, and descended at a canter towards them. 



THE BUFFALO. 79 



bending close to our horses' necks. Instantly they took the 
alarm; those on the hill descended, those below gathered 
into a mass, and the whole got into motion, shouldering 
each other along at a clumsy gallop. We followed, spur- 
ring our horses to full speed; and as the herd rushed, crowd- 
ing and trampling in terror through an opening in the hills, 
we were close at their heels, half suffocated by the clouds 
of dust. But as we drew near, their alarm and speed in- 
creased; our horses, being new to the work, showed signs of 
the utmost fear, bounding violently aside as we approached, 
and refusing to enter among the herd. The buffalo now 
broke into several small bodies, scampering over the hills 
in different directions, and I lost sight of Shaw; neither of 
us knew where the other had gone. Old Pontiac ran like 
a frantic elephant up hill and down hill, his ponderous 
hoofs striking the prairie like sledge-hammers. He showed 
a curious mixture of eagerness and terror, straining to over- 
take the panic-stricken herd, but constantly recoiling in dis- 
may as we drew near. The fugitives, indeed, offered no 
very attractive spectacle, with their shaggy manes and the 
tattered remnants of their last winter's hair covering their 
backs in irregular shreds and patches, and flying off in the 
wind as they ran. At length I urged my horse close behind 
a bull, and after trying in vain, by blows and spurring to 
bring him alongside, I fired from this disadvantageous posi- 
tion. At the report Pontiac swerved so much that I was 
again thrown a little behind the game. The bullet, enter- 
ing too much in the rear, failed to disable the bull; for a 
buffalo requires to be shot at particular points, or he will 
certainly escape. The herd ran up a hill, and I followed 
in pursuit. As Pontiac rushed headlong down on the other 
side, I saw Shaw and Henry descending the hollow on the 
right, at a leisurely gallop; and in front, the buffalo were 



8o THE OREGON TRAIL. 

just disappearing behind the crest of the next hill, their 
short tails erect, and their hoofs twinkling through a cloud 
of dust. 

At that moment I heard Shaw and Henry shouting to me; 
but the muscles of a stronger arm than mine could not have 
checked at once the furious course of Pontiac, whose mouth 
was as insensible as leather. Added to this, I rode him 
that morning with a snaffle, having the day before, for the 
benefit of my other horse, unbuckled from my bridle the curb 
which I commonly used. A stronger and hardier brute 
never trod the prairie ; but the novel sight of the buffalo 
filled him with terror, and when at full speed he was almost 
incontrollable. Gaining the top of the ridge, I saw nothing 
of the buffalo; they had all vanished amid the intricacies 
of the hills and hollows. Reloading my pistols in the best 
way I could, I galloped on until I saw them again scuttling 
along at the base of the hill, their panic somewhat abated. 
Down went old Pontiac among them, scattering them to the 
right and left ; and then we had another long chase. About 
a dozen bulls were before us, scouring over the hills, rush- 
ing down the declivities with tremendous weight and im- 
petuosity, and then laboring with a weary gallop upward. 
Still Pontiac, in spite of spurring and beating, would not 
close with them. One bull at length fell a little behind 
the rest, and by dint of much effort, I urged my horse 
within six or eight yards of his side. His back was dark- 
ened with sweat; he was panting heavily, while his tongue 
lolled out a foot from his jaws. Gradually I came up abreast 
of him, urging Pontiac with leg and rein nearer to his side, 
when suddenly he did what buffalo in such circumstances 
will always do: he slackened his gallop, and turning towards 
us, with an aspect of mingled rage and distress, lowered 
his huge, shaggy head for a charge. Pontiac, with a snort. 



THE BUFFALO. 



leaped aside in terror, nearly throwing me to the ground, 
as I was wholly unprepared for such an evolution. I raised 
my pistol in a passion to strike him on the head, but think- 
ing better of it, fired the bullet after the bull, who had re- 
sumed his flight; then drew rein and determined to rejoin 
my companions. It was high time. The breath blew hard 
from Pontiac's nostrils, and the sweat rolled in big drops 
down his sides ; I myself felt as if drenched in warm water. 
Pledging myself to take my revenge at a future opportunity, 
I looked about for some indications to show me where I 
was, and what course I ought to pursue ; I might as well 
have looked for landmarks in the midst of the ocean. How 
many miles I had run, or in what direction, I had no idea; 
and around me the prairie was rolling in steep swells and 
pitches, without a single distinctive feature to guide me. 
I had a little compass hung at my neck; and ignorant that 
the Platte at this point diverged considerably from its east- 
erly course, I thought that by keeping to the northward I 
should certainly reach it. So I turned and rode about two 
hours in that direction. The prairie changed as I advanced, 
softening away into easier undulations, but nothing like the 
Platte appeared, nor any sign of a human being: the same 
wild, endless expanse lay around me still ; and to all appear- 
ance I was as far from my object as ever. I began now to 
think myself in danger of being lost, and, reining in my 
horse, summoned the scanty share of woodcraft that I pos- 
sessed (if that term be applicable on the prairie) to extri- 
cate me. It occurred to me that the buffalo might prove 
my best guides. I soon found one of the paths made by 
them in their passage to the river: it ran nearly at right 
angles to my course; but turning my horse's head in the 
direction it indicated, his freer gait and erected ears assured 
mc that I was right. 

6 



82 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

But in the mean time my ride had been by no means a 
solitary one. The face of the country was dotted far and 
wide with countless hundreds of buffalo. They trooped 
along in files and columns, bulls, cows, and calves, on the 
green faces of the declivities m front. They scrambled 
away over the hills to the right and left; and far off, the 
pale blue swells in the extreme distance were dotted with 
innumerable specks. Sometimes I surprised shaggy old 
bulls grazing alone, or sleeping behind the ridges I as- 
cended. They would leap up at my approach, stare stu- 
pidly at me through their tangled manes, and then gallop 
heavily away. The antelope were very numerous; and as 
they are always bold when in the neighborhood of buffalo, 
they would approach to look at me. gaze intently with 
their great round eyes, then suddenly leap aside, and 
stretch lightly away over the prairie, swift as a race-horse. 
Squalid, ruffian-like wolves sneaked through the hollows 
and sandy ravines. Several times I passed through vil- 
lages of prairie-dogs, who sat, each at the mouth of his 
burrow, holding his paws before him in a supplicating atti- 
tude, and yelping away most vehemently, whisking his 
little tail with every squeaking cry he uttered. Prairie- 
dogs are not fastidious in their choice of companions; vari- 
ous long, checkered snakes were sunning themselves in the 
midst of the village, and demure little gray owls, with a 
large white ring round each eye, were perched side by 
side with the rightful inhabitants. The prairie teemed 
with life. Again and again I looked toward the crowded 
hill-sides, and was sure I saw horsemen ; and riding near, 
with a mixture of hope and dread, for Indians were abroad, 
I found them transformed into a group of buffalo. There 
was nothing in human shape amid all this vast congrega- 
tion of brute forms. 



THE BUFFALO. 83 



When I turned down the buffalo path, the prairie seemed 
changed; only a wolf or two glided by at intervals, like con- 
scious felons, never looking to the right or left. Being now 
free from anxiety, I was at leisure to observe minutely the 
objects around me; and here, for the first time, I noticed 
insects wholly different from any of the varieties found 
farther eastward. Gaudy butterflies fluttered about my 
horse's head; strangely formed beetles, glittering with me- 
tallic lustre, were crawling upon plants that I had never 
seen before; multitudes of lizards, too, were darting like 
lightning over the sand. 

I had run to a great distance from the river. It cost me 
a long ride on the buffalo path before I saw, from the ridge 
of a sand-hill, the pale surface of the Platte glistening in 
the midst of its desert valley, and the faint outline of the 
hills beyond waving along the sky. From where I stood, 
not a tree nor a bush nor a living thing was visible through- 
out the whole extent of the sun-scorched landscape. In half 
an hour I came upon the trail, not far from the river; and 
seeing that the party had not yet passed, I turned eastward 
to meet them, old Pontiac's long swinging trot again assur- 
ing me that I was right in doing so. Having been slightly 
ill on leaving camp in the morning, six or seven hours of 
rough riding had fatigued me extremely. I soon stopped, 
therefore, flung my saddle on the ground, and with my head 
resting on it, and my horse's trail-rope tied loosely to 
my arm, lay waiting the arrival of the party, speculating 
meanwhile on the extent of the injuries Pontiac had 
received. 

At length the white wagon-coverings rose from the verge 
of the plain. By a singular coincidence, almost at the same 
moment two horsemen appeared coming down from the 
hills. They were Shaw and Henry, who had searched for 



84 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

me awhile in the morning, but well knowing the futility of 
the attempt in such a broken country, had placed themselves 
on the top of the highest hill they could find, and picketing 
their horses near them, as a signal to me, had lain down 
and fallen asleep. The stray cattle had been recovered, 
as the emigrants told us, about noon. Before sunset we 
pushed forward eight miles farther. 

"June 7, 1846. Four men are missing: R , Sorel, and two emi- 
grants. They set out this morning after buffalo, and have not yet made 
their appearance ; whether killed or lost, we cannot tell." 

I find the above in my note-book, and well remember the 
council held on the occasion. Our fire was the scene of 
it; for the superiority of Henry Chatillon's experience and 
skill made him the resort of the whole camp upon every 
question of difficulty. He was moulding bullets at the fire, 
when the Captain drew near, with a perturbed and care- 
worn expression of countenance, faithfully reflected on the 
heavy features of Jack, who followed close behind. Then 
the emigrants came straggling from their wagons towards 
the common centre. Various suggestions were made to 
account for the absence of the four men, and one or two 
of the emigrants declared that, when out after the cattle, 
they had seen Indians dogging them, and crawling like 
wolves along the ridges of the hills. At this the Captain 
slowly shook his head with double gravity, and solemnly 
remarked, — 

"It 's a serious thing to be travelling through this cursed 
wilderness;" an opinion in which Jack immediately ex- 
pressed a thorough coincidence. Henry would not commit 
himself by declaring any positive opinion. 

"Maybe he only followed the buffalo too far; maybe 
Indian kill him; maybe he got lost; I cannot tell." 



THE BUFFALO. 



85 



With this the auditors were obliged to rest content; the 
emigrants, not in the least alarmed, though curious to know 
what had become of their comrades, walked back to their 
wagons, and the Captain betook himself pensively to his 
tent. Shaw and I followed his example. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 

ON the eighth of June, at eleven o'clock, we reached the 
South Fork of the Platte, at the usual fording-place. 
For league upon league the desert uniformity of the pros- 
pect was almost unbroken; the hills were dotted with little 
tufts of shrivelled grass, but betwixt these the white sand 
was glaring in the sun; and the channel of the river, almost 
on a level with the plain, was but one great sand-bed, about 
half a mile wide. It was covered with water, but so scantily 
that the bottom was scarcely hidden ; for, wide as it is, the 
average depth of the Platte does not at this point exceed a 
foot and a half. Stopping near its bank, we gathered bois 
de vachc, and made a meal of buffalo-meat. Far off, on the 
other side, was a green meadow, where we could see the white 
tents and wagons of an emigrant camp; and just opposite 
to us we could discern a group of men and animals at the 
water's edge. Four or five horsemen soon entered the 
river, and in ten minutes had waded across and clambered 
up the loose sand-bank. They were ill-looking fellows, 
thin and swarthy, with care-worn, anxious faces, and lips 
rigidly compressed. They had good cause for anxiety; it 
was three days since they first encamped here, and on the 
night of their arrival they had lost a hundred and twenty- 
three of their best cattle, driven off by the wolves, through 
the neglect of the man on guard. This discouraging and 
alarming calamity was not the first that had overtaken 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 



them. Since leaving the settlements they had met with 
nothing but misfortune. Some of their party had died; 
one man had been killed by the Pawnees; and about a 
week before, they had been plundered by the Dakota of 
all their best horses, the wretched animals on which our 
visitors were mounted being the only ones that were left. 
They had encamped, they told us, near sunset, by the side 
of the Platte, and their oxen were scattered over the meadow, 
while the horses were feeding a little farther off. Suddenly 
the ridges of the hills were alive with a swarm of mounted 
Indians, at least six hundred in number, who came pouring 
with a yell down towards the camp, rushing up within a few 
rods, to the great terror of the emigrants; when suddenly 
wheeling, they swept around the band of horses, and in five 
minutes disappeared with their prey through the openings 
of the hills. 

As these emigrants were telling their story, we saw four 

other men approaching. They proved to be R and his 

companions, who had encountered no mischance of any kind, 
but had only wandered too far in pursuit of the game. They 
said they had seen no Indians, but only "millions of buf- 
falo;" and both R and Sorel had meat dangling be- 
hind their saddles. 

The emigrants recrossed the river, and we prepared to 
follow. First the heavy ox-wagons plunged down the bank 
and dragged slowly over the sand-beds; sometimes the hoofs 
of the oxen were scarcely wet by the thin sheet of water; 
and the next moment the river would be boiling against 
their sides, and eddying around the wheels. Inch by inch 
they receded from the shore, dwindling every moment, until 
at length they seemed to be floating far out in the middle 
of the river. A more critical experiment awaited us; for 
our little mule-cart was ill-fitted for the passage of so swift 



88 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

a stream. We watched it with anxiety, till it seemed a 
motionless white speck in the midst of the waters; and it 
was motionless, for it had stuck fast in a quicksand. The 
mules were losing their footing, the wheels were sinking 
deeper and deeper, and the water began to rise through 
the bottom and drench the goods within. All of us who 
had remained on the hither bank galloped to the rescue; 
the men jumped into the water, adding their strength to 
that of the mules, until by much effort the cart was extri- 
cated, and conveyed in safety across. 

As we gained the other bank a rough group of men sur- 
rounded us. They were not robust, nor large of frame, yet 
they had an aspect of hardy endurance. Finding at home 
no scope for their energies, they had betaken themselves 
to the prairie; and in them seemed to be revived, with re- 
doubled force, that fierce spirit which impelled their an- 
cestors, scarcely more lawless than themselves, from the 
German forests, to inundate Europe, and overwhelm the 
Roman empire. A fortnight afterwards this unfortunate 
party passed Fort Laramie, while we were there. Not 
one of their missing oxen had been recovered, though they 
had remained encamped a week in search of them ; and 
they had been compelled to abandon a great part of their 
baggage and provisions, and yoke cows and heifers to their 
wagons to carry them forward upon their journey, the most 
toilsome and hazardous part of which lay still before them. 

It is worth noticing that on the Platte one may sometimes 
see the shattered wrecks of ancient claw-footed tables, 
well waxed and rubbed, or massive bureaus of carved 
oak. These, some of them no doubt the relics of ancestral 
prosperity in the colonial time, must have encountered 
strange vicissitudes. Brought, perhaps, originally from Eng- 
land ; then, with the declining fortunes of their owners. 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 89 

borne across the Alleghanies to the wilderness of Ohio 
or Kentucky; then to Illinois or Missouri; and now at last 
fondly stowed away in the family wagon for the intermi- 
nable journey to Oregon. But the stern privations of the 
way are little anticipated. The cherished relic is soon 
flung out to scorch and crack upon the hot prairie. 

We resumed our journey; but we had gone scarcely a 
mile, when R called out from the rear, — 

"We '11 'camp here." 

"Why do you want to 'camp.^ Look at the sun. It is 
not three o'clock yet." 

" We '11 'camp here ! " 

This was the only reply vouchsafed. Deslauriers was 
in advance with his cart. Seeing the mule-wagon wheeling 
from the track, he began to turn his own team in the same 
direction. 

"Go on, Deslauriers;" and the little cart advanced again. 
As we rode on, we soon heard the wagon of our confeder- 
ates creaking and jolting behind us, and the driver, Wright, 
discharging a furious volley of oaths against his mules; no 
doubt venting upon them the wrath which he dared not 
direct against a more appropriate object. 

Something of this sort had frequently occurred. Our 
English companion was by no means partial to us, and 
we thought we discovered in his conduct an intention to 
thwart and annoy us, especially by retarding the move- 
ments of the party, which he knew that we were anxious 
to quicken. Therefore he would insist on encamping at 
all unseasonable hours, saying that fifteen miles was a suf- 
ficient day's journey. Finding our wishes disregarded, we 
took the direction of affairs into our own hands. Keeping 

always in advance, to the inexpressible indignation of R , 

we encamped at what time and place we thought proper, not 



90 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

much caring whether the rest chose to follow or not. They 
always did so, however, pitching their tent near ours, with 
sullen and wrathful countenances. 

Travelling together on these terms did not suit our 
tastes, and for some time we had meditated a separation. 
We resolved to leave camp early in the morning, and 
push forward as rapidly as possible for Fort Laramie, which 
we hoped to reach, by hard travelling, in four or five days. 
The Captain soon trotted up between us, and we explained 
our intentions. 

" A very extraordinary proceeding, upon my word ! " he 
remarked. The most prominent impression in his mind 
evidently was that we were deserting his party, in what 
he regarded as a very dangerous stage of the journey. We 
ventured to suggest that we were only four in number, 
while his party still included sixteen men; and as we were 
to go forward and they were to follow, a full proportion of 
the perils he apprehended would fall upon us. But the 
austerity of the Captain's features would not relax. "A 
very extraordinary proceeding, gentlemen ! " and repeating 
this, he rode off to confer with his principal. 

Before sunrise on the next morning our tent was down, 
we harnessed our best horses to the cart, and left the camp. 
But first we shook hands with our friends the emigrants, 
who sincerely wished us a safe journey, though some others 
of the party might easily have been consoled had we en- 
countered an Indian war-party on the way. The Captain 
and his brother were standing on the top of a hill, wrapped 
in their plaids, like spirits of the mist, keeping an anxious 
eye on the band of horses below. We waved adieu to them 
as we rode off the ground. The Captain replied with a 
salutation of the utmost dignity, which Jack tried to imi- 
tate, though not with perfect success. 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 91 

In five minutes we had gained the foot of the hills, but 
here we came to a stop. Hendrick was in the shafts, and 
being the incarnation of perverse and brutish obstinacy, 
he utterly refused to move. Deslauriers lashed and swore 
till he was tired, but Hendrick stood like a rock, grumbling 
to himself and looking askance at his enemy, until he saw 
a favorable opportunity to take his revenge, when he struck 
out under the shaft with such cool malignity of intention 
that Deslauriers only escaped the blow by a sudden skip 
into the air, such as no one but a Frenchman could achieve. 
Shaw and he then joined forces, and lashed on both sides 
at once. The brute stood still for a while, till he could 
bear it no longer, when he began to kick and plunge till 
he threatened the utter demolition of the cart and har- 
ness. We glanced back at the camp, which was in full 
sight. Our companions, inspired by emulation, were level- 
line: their tents and driving in their cattle and horses. 

"Take the horse out," said I. 

I took the saddle from Pontiac and put it upon Hendrick; 
the former was harnessed to the cart in an instant. 
" Avancc done!'' cried Deslauriers. Pontiac strode up the 
hill, twitching the little cart after him as if it were a 
feather's weight; and though, as we gained the top we saw 
the wagons of our deserted comrades just getting into mo- 
tion, we had little fear that they could overtake us. 

Leaving the trail, we struck directly across the country, 
and took the shortest cut to reach the main stream of the 
Platte. A deep ravine suddenly intercepted us. We followed 
its sides until we found them less abrupt, and then plunged 
through in the best way we could. Passing behind the 
sandy ravines called "Ash Hollow," we stopped for a short 
nooning at the side of a pool of rain-water; but soon re- 
sumed our journey, and some hours before sunset descended 



92. THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the ravines and gorges opening downward upon the Platte 
west of Ash Hollow. Our horses waded to the fetlock in 
sand; the sun scorched like fire, and the air swarmed with 
sand-flies and mosquitoes. 

At last we gained the Platte. Following it for about 
five miles we saw, just as the sun was sinking, a great 
meadow, dotted with hundreds of cattle, and beyond them 
an encampment of emigrants. A party of them came out 
to meet us, looking upon us at first with cold and suspi- 
cious faces. Seeing four men, different in appearance and 
equipment from themselves, emerging from the hills, they 
had taken us for the van of the much-dreaded Mormons, 
whom they were very apprehensive of encountering. We 
made known our true character, and then they greeted us 
cordially. They expressed much surprise that so small a 
party should venture to traverse that region, though in 
fact such attempts are often made by trappers and Indian 
traders. We rode with them to their camp. The wagons, 
some fifty in number, with here and there a tent interven- 
ing, were arranged as usual in a circle; the best horses 
were picketed in the area within, and the whole circum- 
ference was glowing with the dusky light of fires, display- 
ing the forms of the women and children who were crowded 
around them. This patriarchal scene was curious and strik- 
ing enough; but we made our escape from the place with 
all possible dispatch, being tormented by the intrusive 
questioning of the men who thronged about us. Yankee 
curiosity was nothing to theirs. They demanded our names, 
whence we came, whither we were going, and what was our 
business. The last query was particularly embarrassing; 
since travelling in that country, or indeed anywhere, from any 
other motive than gain, was an idea of which they took no 
cognizance. Yet they were fine-looking fellows, with an 

• 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 93 

air of frankness, generosity, and even courtesy, having come 
from one of the least barbarous of the frontier counties. 

We passed about a mile beyond them, and encamped. 
Being too few in number to stand guard without excessive 
fatigue, we extinguished our fire, lest it should attract the 
notice of wandering Indians; and, picketing our horses 
close around us, slept undisturbed till morning. For three 
days we travelled without interruption, and on the evening 
of the third encamped by the well-known spring on Scott's 
Bluff. 

Henry Chatillon and I rode out in the morning, and, 
descending the western side of the Bluff, were crossing 
the plain beyond. Something that seemed to me a file 
of buffalo came into view, descending the hills several 
miles before us. But Henry reined in his horse, and 
peering across the prairie with a better and more prac- 
tised eye, soon discovered its real nature. "Indians!" he 
said. "Old Smoke's lodges, I b'lieve. Come; let us go! 
Wah ! get up, now, ' Five Hundred Dollar.' " And laying 
on the lash with good will, he galloped forward, and I 
rode by his side. Not long after, a black speck became 
visible on the prairie full two miles off. It grew larger 
and larger; it assumed the form of a man and horse; and 
soon we could discern a naked Indian, careering at full 
gallop towards us. When within a furlong he wheeled 
his horse in a wide circle, and made him describe various 
mystic figures upon the prairie; Henry immediately com- 
pelled "Five Hundred Dollar " to execute similar evolu- 
tions. "It is Old Smoke's village," said he, interpreting 
these signals; "didn't I say so.''" 

As the Indian approached we stopped to wait for him, 
when suddenly he vanished, sinking, as it were, into the 
earth. He had come upon one of the deep ravines that 



94 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

everywhere intersect these prairies. In an instant the rough 
head of his horse stretched upward from the edge, and 
rider and steed came scrambling out, and bounded up 
to us; a sudden jerk of the rein brought the wild, panting 
horse to a full stop. Then followed the needful formality 
of shaking hands. I forget our visitor's name. He was 
a young fellow, of no note in his nation; yet in his per- 
son and equipments he was a good specimen of a Dakota 
warrior in his ordinary travelling dress. Like most of 
his people he was nearly six feet high; lithely and grace- 
fully, yet strongly proportioned; and with a skin singu- 
larly clear and delicate. He wore no paint; his head was 
bare; and his long hair was gathered in a clump behind, 
to the top of which was attached transversely, both by way 
of ornament and of talisman, the mystic whistle, made of 
the wing-bone of the war-eagle, and endowed with various 
magic virtues. From the back of his head descended a line 
of glittering brass plates, tapering from the size of a doub- 
loon to that of a half-dime, a cumbrous ornament, in high 
vogue among the Dakota, and for which they pay the 
traders a most extravagant price. His chest and arms were 
naked ; the buffalo robe, worn over them when at rest, had 
fallen about his waist, and was confined there by a belt. 
This, with the gay moccasins on his feet, completed his 
attire. For arms he carried a quiver of dog-skin at his 
back, and a rude but powerful bow in his hand. His horse 
had no bridle; a cord of hair, lashed around his jaw, served 
in place of one. The saddle was made of wood covered 
with raw hide, and both pommel and cantle rose perpen- 
dicularly full eighteen inches, so that the warrior was 
wedged firmly in his seat, whence nothing could dislodge 
him but the bursting of the girths. 

Advancing with our new companion, we found more of 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 



95 




his people, seated in a circle on the top of a hill; .while a 
rude procession came straggling down the neighboring hol- 
low, men, women, and children, with horses dragging the 
lodge-poles behind them. All that morning, as we moved 
forward, tall savages were stalking silently about us. At 



96 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

noon we reached Horse Creek. The main body of the 
Indians had arrived before us. On the farther bank stood 
a large and strong man, nearly naked, holding a white 
horse by a long cord, and eying us as we approached. 
This was the chief, whom Henry called "Old Smoke." 
Just behind him, his youngest and favorite squaw sat astride 
a fine mule, covered with caparisons of whitened skins, gar- 
nished with blue and white beads, and fringed with little 
ornaments of metal that tinkled with every movement of the 
animal. The girl had a light clear complexion, enlivened 
by a spot of vermilion on each cheek; she smiled, not to 
say grinned, upon us, showing two gleaming rows of white 
teeth. In her hand she carried the tall lance of her un- 
chivalrous lord, fluttering with feathers; his round white 
shield hung at the side of her mule; and his pipe was 
slung at her back. Her dress was a tunic of deer-skin, 
made beautifully white by means of a species of clay found 
on the prairie, ornamented with beads, arranged in figures 
more gay than tasteful, and with long fringes at all the 
seams. Not far from the chief stood a group of stately 
figures, their white buffalo-robes thrown over their shoul- 
ders, gazing coldly upon us; and in the rear for several 
acres, the ground was covered with a temporary encamp- 
ment. Warriors, women, and children swarmed like bees; 
hundre-ds of dogs, of all sizes and colors, ran restlessly 
about; and, close at hand, the wide shallow stream was 
alive with boys, girls, and young squaws, splashing, scream- 
ing, and laughing in the water. At the same time a long 
train of emigrants with their heavy wagons was crossing 
the creek, and dragging on in slow procession by the en- 
' campment of the people whom they and their descendants, 
in the space of a century, are to sweep from the face of 
the earth. 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 97 

The encampment itself was merely a temporary bivouac 
during the heat of the day. None of the lodges were pitched ; 
but their heavy leather coverings, and the long poles used 
to support them, were scattered everywhere, among weapons, 
domestic utensils, and the rude harness of mules and horses. 
The squaws of each lazy warrior had made him a shelter 
from the sun, by stretching a few buffalo-robes, or the cor- 
ner of a lodge-covering, upon poles ; and here he sat in the 
shade, with a favorite young squaw, perhaps, at his side, glit- 
tering with all imaginable trinkets. Before him stood the 
insignia of his rank as a warrior, his white shield of bull- 
hide, his medicine-bag, his bow and quiver, his lance and 
his pipe, raised aloft on a tripod of poles. Except the dogs, 
the most active and noisy tenants of the camp were the 
old women, ugly as Macbeth' s witches, with hair stream- 
ing loose in the wind, and nothing but the tattered frag- 
ment of an old buffalo-robe to hide their shrivelled limbs. 
The day of their favoritism passed two generations ago; 
now, the heaviest labors of the camp devolved upon them ; 
they must harness the horses, pitch the lodges, dress the 
buffalo-robes, and bring in meat for the hunters. With the 
cracked voices of these hags, the clamor of dogs, the shout- 
ing and laughing of children and girls, and the listless tran- 
quillity of the warriors, the whole scene had an effect too 
lively and picturesque to be forgotten. 

We stopped not far from the Indian camp, and having 
invited some of the chiefs and warriors to dinner, placed 
before them a repast of biscuit and coffee. Squatted in a 
half-circle on the ground, they soon disposed of it. As we 
rode forward on the afternoon journey, several of our late 
guests accompanied us. Among the rest was a bloated sav- 
age, of more than three hundred pounds' weight, christened, 
Le Cochon in consideration of his preposterous dimensions, 

7 



98 THE OREGON TRAIL 

and certain corresponding traits of his character. "The 
Hog " bestrode a little white pony, scarcely able to bear 
up under the enormous burden, though, by way of keeping 
up the necessary stimulus, the rider kept both feet in con- 
stant motion, playing alternately against his ribs. The old 
man was not a chief; he never had ambition enough to 
become one; he was not a warrior nor a hunter, for he was 
too fat and lazy; but he was the richest man in the village. 
Riches among the Dakota consist in horses, and of these 
"The Hog" had accumulated more than thirty. He had 
already ten times as many as he wanted, yet still his appe- 
tite for horses was insatiable. Trotting up to me, he shook 
me by the hand and gave me to understand that he was my 
devoted friend; then he began a series of signs and gesti- 
culation, his oily countenance radiant with smiles, and his 
little eyes peeping out with a cunning twinkle from between 
the masses of flesh that almost obscured them. Knowing 
nothing at that time of the sign-language of the Indians, I 
could only guess at his meaning. So I called on Henry to 
explain it. 

"The Hog," it seems, was anxious to conclude a matri- 
monial bargain, and barter one of his daughters for my 
horse. These overtures I chose to reject; at which "The 
Hog," still laughing with undiminished good humor, gath- 
ered his robe about his shoulders, and rode away. 

Where we encamped that night, an arm of the Platte ran 
between high bluffs; it was turbid and swift as heretofore, 
but trees were growing on its crumbling banks, and there 
was a nook of grass between the water and the hill. Just 
before entering this place, we saw the emigrants encamping 
two or three miles distant on the right; while the whole In- 
dian rabble were pouring down the neighboring hill in hope 
of the same sort of entertainment which they had experi- 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 99 

enced from us. In the savage landscape before our camp, 
nothing but the rushing of the Platte broke the silence. 
Through the ragged boughs of the trees, dilapidated and 
half dead, we saw the sun setting in crimson behind the 
peaks of the Black Hills; the restless bosom of the river 
was suffused with red; our white tent was tinged with it, 
and the sterile bluffs, up to the rocks that crowned them, ' 
partook of the same fiery hue. It soon passed away; no 
light remained but that from our fire, blazing high among 
the dusky trees and bushes, while we lay around it wrapped 
in our blankets, smoking and conversing through half the 
night. 

We crossed a sun-scorched plain on the next morning; 
the line of old cotton-wood trees that fringed the bank of 
the Platte forming its extreme verge. Nestled close be- 
neath them, we could discern in the distance something 
like a building. As we came nearer, it assumed form and 
dimensions, and proved to b^ a rough structure of logs. It 
was a little trading fort, belonging to two private traders; 
and originally intended, like all the forts of the country, to 
form a hollow square, with rooms for lodging and storage 
opening upon the area within. Only two sides of it had 
been completed ; the place was now as ill-fitted for the 
purposes of defence as any of those little log-houses which 
upon our constantly shifting frontier have been so often 
successfully held against overwhelming odds of Indians. 
Two lodges were pitched close to the fort ; the sun beat 
scorching upon the logs; no living thing was stirring ex- 
cept one old squaw, who thrust her round head from the 
opening of the nearest lodge, and three or four stout 
young puppies, who were peeping with looks of eager in- 
quiry from under the covering. In a moment a door 
opened, and a little, swarthy, black-eyed P'renchman came 



lOO THP: OREGON TRAIL. 

out. His dress was rather singular; his black curling hair 
was parted in the middle of his head, and fell below his 
shoulders; he wore a tight frock of smoked deer-skin, gayly 
ornamented with figures worked in dyed porcupine-quills. 
His moccasins and leggings were also gaudily adorned in the 
same manner; and the latter had in addition a line of long 
fringes, reaching down the seams. The small frame of 
Richard, for by this name Henry made him known to us, 
was in the highest degree athletic and vigorous. There 
was no superfluity, and indeed there seldom is among the 
white men of this country, but every limb was compact 
and hartl ; every sinew had its full tone and elasticity, and 
the whole man wore an air of mingled hardihood and 
buoyancy. 

RiclKuxl committed our horses to a Navaho slave, a mean- 
looking fellow, taken prisoner on the Mexican frontier; and, 
relieving us of our rifles with ready politeness, led the way 
into the principal apartment of his establislimcnt. This was 
a room ten feet square. The walls and fioor were of black 
mud, and the roof of rough timber; there was a huge fire- 
place made of four flat rocks, picked up on the prairie. An 
Indian bow and otter-skin t|uivcr, several gaudy articles of 
Rocky Mountain finery, an Indian medicine-bag, and a pipe 
and tobacco-pouch garnished the walls, and rifles rested in 
a corner. There was no furniture except a sort of rtuigh 
settle, covered with buffalo-robes, upon which lolled a tall 
half-breed with his hair glued in masses upon each temple, 
and saturated with vermilion. Two or three more " mountain 
men " sat cross-legged on the floor. Their attire was not 
unlike that of Richard himself; but the most striking figure 
of the group was a naked Indian boy of sixteen, with a hand- 
some face, and light, active proportions, who sat in an easy 
posture in the corner near the door. Not one of his limbs 

• 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. lOl 

moved the breadth of a hair; his eye was fixed immovably, 
not on any person present, but, as it appeared, on the pro- 
jcctini; corner of the fireplace opposite to him. 

On the prairie the custom of smoking with friends is 
seldom omitted whether among Indians or whites. The 
pipe, therefore, was taken from the wall, and its red bowl 
crammed with the tobacco and sJiongsasha, mixed in suitable 
proportions. Then it passed round the circle, each man 
inhaling a few whiffs and handing it to his neighbor. 
Having spent half an hour here we took our leave; first 
inviting our new friends to drink a cup of coffee with us 
at our camp a mile farther up the river. 

By this time we had grown rather shabby; our clothes 
had burst into rags and tatters ; and, what was worse, we 
had little means of renovation. Fort Laramie was but seven 
miles before us. Being averse to appearing in such a plight 
among any society that could boast an approximation to the 
civilized, we stopped by the river to make our toilet in the 
best way we could. We hung up small looking-glasses 
against the trees and shaved, an operation neglected for six 
weeks; we performed our ablutions in the Platte, though the 
utility of such a proceeding was questionable, the water look- 
ing exactly like a cup of chocolate, and the banks consist- 
ing of the softest and richest yellow mud, so that we were 
obliged, as a preliminary, to build a causeway of branches 
and twigs. Having also put on radiant moccasins, procured 
from a squaw of Richard's establishment, and made what 
other improvements our narrow circumstances allowed, we 
took our seats on the grass with a feeling of greatly in- 
creased respectability, to await the arrival of our guests. 
They came; the banquet was concluded, and the pipe 
smoked. Bidding them adieu, we turned our horses' heads 
towards the fort. 



102 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

An hour elapsed. The barren hills closed across our 
front, and we could see no farther; until, having sur- 
mounted them, a rapid stream appeared at the foot of 
the descent, running into the Platte; beyond was a green 
meadow, dotted with bushes, and in the midst of these, 
at the point where the two rivers joined, were the low 
clay walls of a fort. This was not Fort Laramie, but an- 
other post, of less recent date, which having sunk before 
its successful competitor, was now deserted and ruinous. 
A moment after, the hills seeming to draw apart as we 
advanced, disclosed Fort Laramie itself, its high bastions 
and perpendicular walls of clay crowning an eminence on 
the left beyond the stream, while behind stretched a line 
of arid and desolate ridges, and behind these again, tower- 
ing seven thousand feet aloft, rose the grim Black Hills. 

We tried to ford Laramie Creek at a point nearly 
opposite the fort, but the stream, swollen with rains, was 
too rapid. We passed up along its bank to find a better 
crossing-place. Men gathered on the wall to look at us. 
"There's Bordeaux!" called Henry, his face brightening 
as he recognized his acquaintance; "him there with the 
spy-glass; and there's old Vaskiss, and Tucker, and May; 
and, by George! there's Simoneau. " This Simoneau was 
Henry's fast friend, and the only man in the country^ who 
could rival him in hunting. 

We soon found a ford. Henry led the way, the pony 
approaching the bank with a countenance of cool indiffer- 
ence, bracing his feet and sliding into the stream with the 
most unmoved composure. We followed; the water boiled 
against our saddles, but our horses bore us easily through. 
The unfortunate little mules were near going down with the 
current, cart and all; and w^e watched them with some solici- 
tude scrambling over the loose round stones at the bottom, 



TAKING FRENCH LEAVE. 



103 



and bracing stoutly against the stream. All landed safely 
at last; we crossed a little plain, descended a hollow, and 
riding up a steep bank, found ourselves before the gateway 
of Fort Laramie, under the impending blockhouse erected 
above it to defend the entrance. 




CHAPTER IX. 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 



LOOKING back, after the expiration of a year, upon Fort 
Laramie and its inmates, they seem less like a reality 
than like some fanciful picture of the olden time ; so different 
was the scene from any which this tamer side of the world 
can present. Tall Indians, enveloped in their white buffalo- 
robes, were striding across the area or reclining at full length 
on the low roofs of the buildings which enclosed it. Numer- 
ous squaws, gayly bedizened, sat grouped in front of the 
rooms they occupied ; their mongrel offspring, restless and 
vociferous, rambled in every direction through the fort; and 
the trappers, traders, and oigmgcs of the establishment were 
busy at their labor or their amusements. 

We were met at the gate, but by no means cordially wel- 
comed. Indeed we seemed objects of some distrust and 
suspicion, until Henry Chatillon explained that we were 
not traders, and we. in confirmation, handed to the boiu-- 
gcois a letter of introduction from his principals. He took 
it, turned it upside down, and tried hard to read it ; but 
his literary attainments not being adequate to the task, 
he applied for relief to the clerk, a sleek, smiling French- 
man, named Monthalon. The letter read, Bordeaux (the 
bourgeois) seemed gradually to axyaken to a sense of what 
was expected of him. Though not deficient in hospitable 
intentions, he was wholly unaccustomed to act as master 
of ceremonies. Discarding all formalities of reception, he 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 105 

did not honor us with a single word, but walked swiftly 
across the area, while we followed in some admiration to 
a railing and a flight of steps opposite the entrance. He 1 
signed to us that we had better fasten our horses to th«^_^/- 
railing; then he walked up the steps, tramped along a rude 
balcony, and, kicking open a door, displayed a large room, 
rather more elaborately furnished than a barn. For furni- 
ture it had a rough bedstead, but no bed, two chairs, a 
chest of drawers, a tin pail to hold water, and a board to 
cut tobacco upon. A brass crucifix hung on the wall, and 
close at hand a recent scalp, with hair full a yard long, was 
suspended from a nail. I shall again have occasion to men- 
tion this dismal trophy, its history being connected with 
that of our subsequent proceedings. 

This apartment, the best in Fort Laramie, was that usu- 
ally occupied by the legitimate bourgeois, Papin, in whose 
absence the command devolved upon Bordeaux. The latter, 
a stout, bluff little fellow, much inflated by a sense of his 
new authority, began to roar for buffalo-robes. These being 
brought and spread upon the floor formed our beds, — much 
better ones than we had of late been accustomed to. Our 
arrangements made, we stepped out to the balcony to take a 
more leisurely survey of the long looked-for haven at which 
we had arrived at last. Beneath us was the square area 
surrounded by little rooms, or rather cells, which opened 
upon it. These were devoted to various purposes, but 
served chiefly for the accommodation of the men employed 
at the fort, or of the equally numerous squaws whom they 
were allowed to maintain in it. Opposite to us rose the 
blockhouse above the gateway; it was adorned with the 
figure of a horse at full speed, daubed upon the boards with 
red paint, and exhibiting a degree of skill which might rival 
that displayed by the Indians in executing similar designs 



io6 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



upon their robes and lodges. A busy scene was enacting in 
the area. The wagons of Vaskiss, an old trader, were about 
to set out for a remote post in the mountains, and the 
Canadians were going through their preparations with all 

possible bustle, while here 
and there an Indian stood 
looking on with impertur- 
bable gravity. 

Fort Laramie is one of 
the posts established by the 
"American Fur Company," 
which well-nigh monopo- 
lizes the Indian trade of 
this region. Here its offi- 
cials rule with an absolute 
sway; the arm of the Unit- 
ed States has little force; 
for when we were there, the extreme outposts of her 
troops were about seven hundred miles to the eastward. 
The little fort is built of bricks dried in the sun, and 
externally is of an oblong form, with bastions of clay, in 
the form of ordinary blockhouses, at two of the corners. 
The walls are about fifteen feet high, and surmounted by 
a slender palisade. The roofs of the apartments within, 
which are built close against the walls, serve the purpose 
of a banquette. Within, the fort is divided by a parti- 
tion: on one side is the square area, surrounded by the 
store-rooms, offices, and apartments of the inmates; on 
the other is the corral, a narrow place, encompassed by 
the high clav walls, where at night, or in presence of 
dangerous Indians, the horses and mules of the fort are 
crowded for safe keeping. The main entrance has two 
gates, with an arched passage intervening. A little square 




SCExNES AT FORT LARAMIE. 107 

window, high above the ground, opens laterally from an 
adjoining chamber into this passage ; so that when the inner 
gate is closed and barred, a person without may still hold 
communication with those within, through this narrow aper- 
ture. This obviates the necessity of admitting suspicious 
Indians, for purposes of trading, into the body of the 
fort; for when danger is apprehended, the inner gate is shut 
fast, and all traffic is carried on by means- of the window. 
This precaution, though necessary at some of the Company's 
posts, is seldom reported to at Fort Laramie; where, though 
men are frequently killed in the neighborhood, no appre- 
hensions are felt of any general designs of hostility from 
the Indians. 

We did not long enjoy our new quarters undisturbed. 
The door was silently pushed open, and two eyeballs and 
a visage as black as night looked in upon us ; then a red 
arm and shoulder intruded themselves, and a tall Indian, 
gliding in, shook us by the hand, grunted his salutation, 
and sat down on the floor. Others followed, with faces 
of the natural hue, and letting fall their heavy robes from 
their shoulders, took their seats, quite at ease, in a semi- 
circle before us. The pipe was now to be lighted and 
passed from one to another; and this was the only enter- 
tainment that at present they expected from us. These 
visitors were fathers, brothers, or other relatives of the 
squaws in the fort, where they were permitted to remain, 
loitering about in perfect idleness. All those who smoked 
with us were men of standing and repute. Two or three 
others dropped in also; young fellows who neither by their 
years nor their exploits were entitled to rank with the old 
men and warriors, and who, abashed in the presence of 
their superiors, stood aloof, never withdrawing their eyes 
from us. Their cheeks were adorned with vermilion, their 



I08 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ears with pendants of shell, and their necks with beads. 
Never yet having signalized themselves as hunters, or per- 
formed the honorable exploit of killing a man, they were 
held in slight esteem, and were diffident and bashful in 
proportion. Certain formidable inconveniences attended 
this influx of visitors. They were bent on inspecting 
everything in the room ; our equipments and our dress 
alike underwent their scrutiny, for though the contrary 
has been asserted, few beings have more curiosity than 
Indians in regard to subjects within their ordinary range of 
thought. As to other matters, indeed, they seem utterly 
indifferent. They will not trouble themselves to inquire 
into what they cannot comprehend, but are quite contented 
to place their hands over their mouths in token of wonder, 
and exclaim that it is "great medicine." With this com- 
prehensive solution, an Indian never is at a loss. He 
never launches into speculation and conjecture; his reason 
moves in its beaten track. His soul is dormant; and no 
exertions of the missionaries, Jesuit or Puritan, of the old 
world or of the new, have as yet availed to arouse it. 

As we were looking, at sunset, from the wall, upon the 
desolate plains that surround the fort, we observed a clus- 
ter of strange objects like scaffolds, rising in the distance 
against the red western sky. They bore aloft some singu- 
lar-looking burdens; and at their foot glimmered something 
white, like bones. This was the place of sepulture of some 
Dakota chiefs, whose remains their people are fond of 
placing in the vicinity of the fort, in the hope that they 
may thus be protected from violation at the hands of their 
enemies. Yet it has happened more than once, and quite 
recently, that war parties of the Crow Indians, ranging 
through the country, have thrown the bodies from the scaf- 
folds, and broken them to pieces, amid the veils of the 




mwc I^SMiNQTOr^ 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 



109 



Dakota, who remained pent up in the fort, too few to 
defend the honored relics from insult. The white objects 
upon the ground were buffalo skulls, arranged in the mys- 
tic circle commonly seen at Indian places of sepulture 
upon the prairie. 

We soon discovered, in the twilight, a band of fifty or 
sixty horses approaching the fort. These were the animals 
belonging to the establishment; who, having been sent out 
to feed, under the care of armed guards, in the meadows 
below, were now being driven into the corraliox the night. 
A gate opened into 
this inclosure; by the 
side of it stood one of 
the guards, an old 
Canadian, with gray 
bushy eyebrows, and 
a dragoon pistol stuck 
into his belt; while 
his comrade, mounted 
on horseback, his rifle 
laid across the saddle 
in front, and his long 
hair blowing before 
his swarthy face, rode 

at the rear of the disorderly troop, urging them up the 
ascent. In a moment the narrow corral was thronged with 
the half-wild horses, kicking, biting, and crowding restlessly 
together. 

The discordant jingling of a bell, rung by a Canadian in 
the area, summoned us to supper. The repast was served 
on a rough table in one of the lower apartments of the fort, 
and consisted of cakes of bread and dried buffalo meat, an 
excellent thine: for strengthening the teeth. At this meal 




no THE OREGON TRAIL. 

were seated the bourgeois and superior dignitaries of the 
establishment, among whom Henry Chatillon was worthily 
included. No sooner was it finished than the table was 
spread a second time (the luxury of bread being now, how- 
ever, omitted), for the benefit of certain hunters and trap- 
pers of an inferior standing; while the ordinary Canadian 
engages were regaled on dried meat in one of their lodging 
rooms. By way of illustrating the domestic economy of 
Fort Laramie, it may not be amiss to introduce in this 
place a story current among the men when we were 
there. 

There was an old man named Pierre, whose duty it was 
to bring- the meat from the store-room for the men. Old 
Pierre, in the kindness of his heart, used to select the 
fattest and the best pieces for his companions. This did 
not long escape the keen-eyed bourgeois, who was greatly 
disturbed at such improvidence, and cast about for some 
means to stop it. At last he hit on a plan that exactly 
suited him. At the side of the meat-room, and separated 
from it by a clay partition, was another apartment, used 
for the storage of furs. It had no communication with 
the fort, except through a square hole in the partition; 
and of course it was perfectly dark. One evening the 
bourgeois, watching for a moment when no one observed 
him, dodged into the meat-room, clambered through the 
hole, and ensconced himself among the furs and buffalo- 
robes. Soon after, old Pierre came in with his lantern, and 
muttering to himself, began to pull over the bales of meat 
and select the best pieces, as usual. But suddenly a hollow 
and sepulchral voice proceeded from the inner room : 
"Pierre, Pierre! Let that fat meat alone. Take nothing 
but lean." Pierre dropped his lantern, and bolted out into 
the fort, screaming, in an agony of terror, that the devil 



SCExNES AT FORT LARAMIE. Ill 

was in the store-room; but tripping on the threshold, he 
pitched over upon the gravel, and lay senseless, stunned by 
the fall. The Canadians ran out to the rescue. Some 
lifted the unlucky Pierre; and others, making an extem- 
pore crucifix of two sticks, were proceeding to attack the 
devil in his stronghold, when the bourgeois, with a crest- 
fallen countenance, appeared at the door. To add to his 
mortification, he was obliged to explain the whole stratagem 
to Pierre, in order to bring him to his senses. 

We were sitting, on the following morning, in the pas- 
sage-way between the gates, conversing with the traders 
Vaskiss and May. These two men, together with our sleek 
friend, the clerk Monthalon, were, I believe, the only per- 
sons then in the fort who could read and write. May was 
telling a curious story about the traveller Catlin, when an 
ugly, diminutive Indian, wretchedly mounted, came up at 
a gallop, and rode by us into the fort. On being ques- 
tioned, he said that Smoke's village was close at hand. 
Accordingly only a few minutes elapsed before the hills 
beyond the river were covered with a disorderly swarm of 
savages, on horseback and on foot. May finished his story; 
and by that time the whole array had descended to Laramie 
Creek, and begun to cross it in a mass. I walked down to 
the bank. The stream is wide, and was then between 
three and four feet deep, with a swift current. For several 
rods the water was alive with dogs, horses, and Indians. 
The long poles used in pitching the lodges are carried by 
the horses, fastened by the heavier end, two or three on 
each side, to a rude sort of pack-saddle, while the other 
end drags on the ground. About a foot behind the horse, 
a kind of large basket or pannier is suspended between 
the poles, and firmly lashed in its place. On the back of 
the horse are piled various articles of luggage; the basket 



112 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



also is well filled with domestic utensils, or, quite as 
often, with a litter of puppies, a brood of small children, 
or a superannuated old man. Numbers of these curious 
vehicles, traincaiix, or, as the Canadians called them, travois, 
were now splashing together through the stream. Among 

them swam countless 

dogs, 

with 




eanx ; 
ward 



often burdened 
miniature train- 
and dashing for- 
on horseback 
through the throng came 
the warriors, the slender 
figure of some lynx-eyed 
boy clinging fast behind 
them. The women sat 
perched on the pack- 
saddles, adding not a 
little to the load of 
the already over- 
burdened horses. 
The confusion was 
prodigious. The 
dogs yelled a n d 
howled in chorus; the puppies in the travois set up a 
dismal whine as the water invaded their comfortable re- 
treat; the little black-eyed children, from one year of age 
upward, clung fast with both hands to the edge of their 
basket, and looked over in alarm at the water rushing so 
near them, sputtering and making wry mouths as it splashed 
against their faces. Some of the dogs, encumbered by their 
load, were carried down by the current, yelping piteously ; 
and the old squaws would rush into the water, seize their 
favorites by the neck, and drag them out. As each horse 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. II3 

gained the bank, he scrambled up as he could. Stray horses 
and colts came among the rest, often breaking away at full 
speed through the crowd, followed by the old hags, scream- 
ing after their fashion on all occasions of excitement. Bux- 
om young squaws, blooming in all the charms of vermilion, 
stood here and there on the bank, holding aloft their mas- 
ter's lance, as a signal to collect the scattered portions of 
his household. In a few moments the crowd melted away; 
each family with its horses and equipage, filing off to the 
plain at the rear of the fort ; and here, in the space of half 
an hour, arose sixty or seventy of their tapering lodges. 
Their horses were feeding by hundreds over the surrounding 
prairie, and their dogs were roaming everywhere. The fort 
was full of warriors, and the children were whooping and 
yelling incessantly under the walls. 

These new-comers were scarcely arrived, when Bordeaux 
ran across the fort, shouting to his squaw to bring him his 
spy-glass. The obedient Marie, the very model of a squaw, 
produced the instrument, and Bordeaux hurried with it to 
the wall. Pointing it eastward, he exclaimed, with an oath, 
that the families were coming. But a few moments elapsed 
before the heavy caravan of the emigrant wagons could be 
seen, steadily advancing from the hills. They gained the 
river, and, without turning or pausing, plunged in, passed 
through, and slowly ascending the opposing bank, kept 
directly on their way by the fort and the Indian village, 
until, gaining a spot a quarter of a mile distant, they 
wheeled into a circle. For some time our tranquillity 
was undisturbed. The emigrants were preparing their en- 
campment ; but no sooner was this accomplished than 
Fort Laramie was taken by storm. A crowd of broad- 
brimmed hats, thin visages, and staring eyes, appeared 
suddenly at the gate. Tall, awkward men, in brown home- 

8 



114 



THE OREGON TRAII. 



spun, women, with cadaverous faces and lonp^ lank fiii;urcs, 
came thron_<;in_L; in loL;"elher, and, as if inspired by the \-ery 
demon of curiosity, ransacked every nook and corner of 
tlie fort. Dismayed at this invasion we withchew in all 

speed to our chamber, 
vainl)' hopini;' that it 
inii;ht ]M"o\e a sanctu- 
ary. 'Idle emigrants 
jirosecuted their iux'cs- 
tii;"ations with uiitiriui;' 
vi_i;()r. The}- penetrated 
the rooms, oi- rather 
dens, inhabited by the 
astonished sc|ua\vs. Re- 
solved to search every 
mystery to the bottom, 
they exjilored the apart- 
ments of the men, and 
even that of Marie and 
the bomxcois. At last a 
numercHis dei^utation appeared at our door, but found no 
encouragement to remain. 

Having at length satisfied their curiosity, they next pro- 
ceeded to business. The men occui)ied themselves in ]-)rocur- 
ing supplies for their onward journey,- either buying them, 
or giving in exchange superfluous articles ol their own. 

The emigrants felt a violent prejudice against the I^'rench 
Indians, as they called the trappers and traders. They 
thought, and with some reason, that these men bore them 
no good-will. Many of them were firmly ixM-suaded that 
the French were instigating the Indians to attack and cut 
them off. On visiting the encamimient we were at once 
struck with the extraordinary perplexity and indecision that 




\ 



SCENES AT I'ORT LAKAMIK. II5 

prc\ ;i I li''l ;iii)i)ii;_; lli'-m I licy sicini'l likr iiii'ii lot.'illy out, 
()( their clement, — hcwilflcrcd ainl aniazcfl, like a troop of 
schcKjlboys lost in the woods. It was inipossihie to be 
lon^ amon^ them with^uit beinj; conscious ol the bold 
spirit with which most of them were aiiimaterl. liiit the 
forest is the home of tlir ba( kwoodsman. On the remote 
prairie he is totally at a loss. He differs as mu( h from 
the genuine " mfumtain-man " as a Canadian voya^em, pad- 
(11 in;; his canoe on the rapids of the (Jttawa, differs from 
an American sailor anion;; the storms of (Jajx- Morn. .Still 
my comi)anion and I were somewhat at a loss to account 
for this perturbed state of mind. It could not be coward- 
ice; these men were of the same stock with the volimteers 
of Monterey anrl Jiiiena Vista. Vet, for the most part, they 
were the rudest and most i;;norant of the frontier popiila 
tion ; they knew absfdutely nothin;; of the eoutitry and its 
inhabitants; they harl already ex[>erien<:erl much misfortune, 
and apprehended more; they had seen nothin;; of mankind, 
and had never put their f;wn resources to the test. 

A full share of suspicion fell upon us. liein;; stran;;ers, 
we were looked upon as enemies. Having; occasion for a 
supjdy of lead and a few other necessary articles, we used 
to ;;o over U) the emi;;rant camps to obtain thern. After 
some hesitation, .some dubious ;;lances, and fumblin;; of 
the hands in the pockets, the terms wmilfl be a;;reed upf;n, 
the price tendered, anrl the emi;;rant wouUl ;;o off \i) brin^ 
the article in question. After waiting; until our patience 
j^ave out, we would '^o in search of him, and find him seated 
on the ton;;ue of his wa;;rm. 

"Well, stran;;er," he wouhl observe, as he saw us ap- 
proach, "I reckon I won't trade." 

Some friend of his had followed him from the scene of 
the bargain, and whispered in his ear that clearly we 



Il6 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

meant to cheat him, and he had better have nothing to 
do with us. 

This timorous mood of the emigrants was doubly unfor- 
tunate, as it exposed them to real danger. Assume, in the 
presence of Indians, a bold bearing, self-confident yet vigi- 
lant, and you will find them tolerably safe neighbors. But 
your safety depends on the respect and fear you are able to 
inspire. If you betray timidity or indecision, you convert 
them from that moment into insidious and dangerous ene- 
mies. The Dakota saw clearly enough the perturbation 
of the emigrants, and instantly availed themselves of it. 
They became extremely insolent and exacting in their de- 
mands. It has become an established custom with them 
to go to the camp of every party, as it arrives in succes- 
sion at the fort, and demand a feast. Smoke's village had 
come with this express design, having made several days' 
journey with no other object than that of enjoying a cup 
of coffee and two or three biscuit. So the "feast" was 
demanded, and the emigrants dared not refuse it. 

One evening about sunset the village was deserted. 
We met old men, warriors, squaws, and children in gay 
attire, trooping off to the encampment with faces of anti- 
cipation; and, arriving here, they seated themselves in a 
semi-circle. Smoke occupied the centre, with his warriors 
on either hand; the young men and boys came next, and 
the squaws and children formed the horns of the crescent. 
The biscuit and coffee were promptly despatched, the emi- 
grants staring open-mouthed at their savage guests. With 
each emigrant party that arrived at Fort Laramie this scene 
was renewed; and every day the Indians grew more rapa- 
cious and presumptuous. One evening they broke in pieces, 
out of mere wantonness, the cups from which they had been 
feasted; and this so exasperated the emigrants that many 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. II7 

of them seized their rifles and could scarcely be restrained 
from firing on the insolent mob of Indians. Before we left 
the country this dangerous spirit on the part of the Da- 
kota had mounted to a yet higher pitch. They began 
openly to threaten the emigrants with destruction, and 
actually fired upon one or two parties of them. A military 
force and military law are urgently called for in that perilous 
region; and unless troops are speedily stationed at Fort 
Laramie, or elsewhere in the neighborhood, both emi- 
grants and other travellers will be exposed to most im- 
minent risks. 

The Ogillallah, the Brule, and the other western bands 
of the Dakota or Siou.x, are thorough savages, unchanged 
by any contact with civilization. Not one of them can speak 
a European tongue, or has ever visited an American settle- 
ment. Until within a year or two, when the emigrants began 
to pass through their country on the way to Oregon, they 
had seen no whites, except the few employed about the 
Fur Company's posts. They thought them a wise people, 
inferior only to themselves, living in leather lodges, like 
their own, and subsisting on buffalo. But when the swarm 
of Mcncaska, with their oxen and wagons, began to invade 
them, their astonishment was unbounded. They could 
scarcely believe that the earth contained such a multitude 
of white men. Their wonder is now giving way to indigna- 
tion; and the result, unless vigilantly guarded against, 
may be lamentable in the extreme. 

But to glance at the interior of a lodge. Shaw and I 
used often to visit them. Indeed we spent most of our 
evenings in the Indian \'illage, Shaw's assumption of the 
medical character giving us a fair pretext. As a sample 
of the rest I will describe one of these visits. The sun 
had just set, and the horses were driven into the corral. 



ii8 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



The Prairie Cock, a noted beau, came in at the gate with 
a bevy of young girls, with whom he began a dance in 
the area, leading them round and round in a circle, while 
he jerked up from his chest a succession of monotonous 
sounds, to which they kept time in a rueful chant. 
Outside the gate boys and young men were idly 
frolicking; and close by, looking grimly upon 
them, stood a warrior in his robe, with his J^^ ^'^^^ 
painted jet-black, in token that he had V^j^^ lately 
taken a Pawnee scalp. Passing these, j^J^ ^^^ ^"^^ dark 
lodges rose between us and the yy^ °y^ ^'^^ western sky. 




We repaired at once 
Smoke himself, 
better than the 
rather shab- 
cratic com- 
assumes 



to the lodge of Old 
It was by no means 
others ; indeed, it was 
by; for in this demo- 
munity the chief never 
superior state. Smoke sat 
legged on a buffalo-robe, and his 
of salutation as we entered was 
ually cordial, out of respect, no doubt, 
Shaw's medical character. Seated around 
the lodge were several squaws, and an abun- 
dance of children. The complaint of Shaw's 
patients was, for the most part, a severe inflamma- 
tion of the eyes, occasioned by exposure to the sun, 
a species of disorder which he treated with some success. 
He had brought with him a homoeopathic medicine-chest, 
and was, I presume, the first who introduced that harmless 
system of treatment among the Ogillallah. No sooner had 
a robe been spread at the head of the lodge for our accommo- 
dation, and we had seated ourselves upon it, than a patient 
made her appearance, — the chief's daughter herself, who, 
to do her justice, was the best-looking girl in the village. 



SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. II9 

Being on excellent terms with the physician, she placed 
herself readily under his hands, and submitted with a good 
grace to his applications, laughing in his face during the 
whole process, for a squaw hardly knows how to smile. 
This case despatched, another of a different kind suc- 
ceeded. A hideous, emaciated old woman sat in the 
darkest corner of the lodge, rocking to and fro with pain, 
and hiding her eyes from the light by pressing the palms 
of both hands against her face. At Smoke's command 
she came forward, very unwillingly, and exhibited a pair 
of eyes that had nearly disappeared from excess of inflam- 
mation. No sooner had the doctor fastened his grip upon 
her, than she set up a dismal moaning, and writhed so in 
his grasp that he lost all patience; but being resolved to 
carry his point, he succeeded at last in. applying his favorite 
remedies. 

"It is strange," he said when the operation was finished, 
"that I forgot to bring any Spanish flies with me; we must 
have something here to answer for a counter-irritant." 

So, in the absence of better, he seized upon a red-hot 
brand from the fire, and clapped it against the temple of 
the old squaw, who set up an unearthly howl, at which the 
rest of the family broke into a laugh. 

During these medical operations Smoke's eldest squaw 
entered the lodge, with a mallet in her hand, the stone 
head of which, precisely like those sometimes ploughed 
up in the fields of New England, was made fast to the 
handle by a covering of raw hide. I had observed some 
time before a litter of well-grown black puppies, comfort- 
ably nestled among some buffalo-robes at one side; but 
this new-comer speedily disturbed their enjoyment; for 
seizing one of them by the hind paw, she dragged him 
out and carrying him to the entrance of the lodge, ham- 



I20 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

mered him on the head till she killed him. Aware to 
what this preparation tended, I looked through a hole in 
the back of the lodge to see the next steps of the process. 
The squaw, holding the puppy by the legs, was swinging 
him to and fro through the blaze of a fire, until the 
hair was singed off. This done, she unsheathed her knife 
and cut him into small pieces, which she dropped into a 
kettle to boil. In a few moments a large wooden dish 
was set before us filled with this delicate preparation. A 
dog-feast is the greatest compliment a Dakota can offer 
to his guest; and, knowing that to refuse eating would be 
an affront, we attacked the little dog, and devoured him 
before the eyes of his unconscious parent. Smoke in the 
mean time was preparing his great pipe. It was lighted 
when we had finished our repast, and we passed it from 
one to another till the bowl was empty. This done, we 
took our leave without further ceremony, knocked at the 
gate of the fort, and after making ourselves known, were 
admitted. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE WAR PARTIES. 




THE summer of 
i! 



verses. 



[846 was a sea- 
son of warlike excite- 
ment among all the 
western bands of the 
Dakota. In 1845 they 
encountered great re- 
Many war parties had 
been sent out; some of them 
had been cut off, and others had 
returned broken and disheart- 
ened ; so that the whole nation 
was in mourning. Among the 
rest, ten warriors had gone to 
the Snake country, led by the son of a prominent Ogillallah 
chief, called the Whirlwind. In passing over Laramie Plains 
they encountered a superior number of their enemies, were 
surrounded, and killed to a man. Having performed this 
exploit, the Snakes became alarmed, dreading the resent- 
ment of the Dakota, and they hastened therefore to sig- 
nify their wish for peace by sending the scalp of the slain 
partisan, with a small parcel of tobacco attached, to his 
tribesmen and relations. They had employed old Vaskiss. 
the trader, as their messenger, and the scalp was the same 
that hung in our room at the fort. But the Whirlwind 
proved inexorable. Though his character hardly corresponds 
with his name, he is nevertheless an Indian, and hates the 



122 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Snakes with his whole soul. Long before the scalp arrived 
he had made his preparations for revenge. He sent messen- 
gers with presents and tobacco to all the Dakota within 
three hundred miles, proposing a grand combination to 
chastise the Snakes, and naming a place and time of ren- 
dezvous. The plan was readily adopted, and at this moment 
many villages, probably embracing in the whole five or six 
thousand souls, were slowly creeping over the prairies and 
tending toward the common centre at "La Bonte's camp" 
on the Platte. Here their warlike rites were to be cele- 
brated with more than ordinary solemnity, and a thousand 
warriors, as it was said, were to set out for the enemy's 
country. The characteristic result of this preparation will 
appear in the sequel. 

I was greatly rejoiced to hear of it. I had come into 
the country chiefly with a view of observing the Indian 
character. To accomplish my purpose it was necessary to 
live in the midst of them, and become, as it were, one of 
them. I proposed to join a village, and make myself an 
inmate of one of their lodges; and henceforward this narra- 
tive, so far as I am concerned, will be chiefly a record of 
the progress of this design, and the unexpected impedi- 
ments that opposed it. 

We resolved on no account to miss the rendezvous at 
"La Bonte's camp." Our plan was to leave Deslauriers 
at the fort, in charge of our equipage and the better part 
of our horses, while we took with us nothing but our 
weapons and the worst animals we had. In all proba- 
bility, jealousies and quarrels would arise among so many 
hordes of fierce, impulsive savages, congregated together 
under no common head, and many of them strangers from 
remote prairies and mountains. We were bound in com- 
mon prudence to be cautious how we excited any feeling 



THE WAR PARTIES. 



of cupidity. This was our plan; but unhappily we were 
not destined to visit "La Bonte's camp" in this manner, 
for one morning a young Indian came to the fort and 
brought us evil tidings. The new-comer was an arrant 
dandy. His ugly face was painted with vermilion; on his 
head fluttered the tail of a prairie-cock (a large species of 
pheasant, not found, as I have heard, eastward of the Rocky 
Mountains) ; in his ears were hung pendants of shell, and 
a flaming red blanket was wrapped around him. He car- 
ried a dragoon-sword in his hand, solely for display, since 
the knife, the arrow, and the rifle are the arbiters of every 
prairie fight ; but as no one in this country goes abroad 
unarmed, the dandy carried a bow and arrows in an otter- 
skin quiver at his back. In this. guise, and bestriding his 
yellow horse with an air of extreme dignity, "The Horse," 
for that was his name, rode in at the gate, turning neither 
to the right nor the left, but casting glances askance at the 
groups of squaws who, with their mongrel progeny, were 
sitting in the sun before their doors. The evil tidings 
brought by "The Horse " were of the following import : The 
squaw of Henry Chatillon, a woman with whom he had been 
connected for years by the strongest ties which in that coun- 
try exist between the sexes, was dangerously ill. She and 
her children were in the village of The Whirlwind, at the 
distance of a few days' journey. Henry was anxious to see 
the woman before she died, and provide for the safety and 
support of his children, of whom he was extremely fond. 
To have refused him this would have been inhumanity. 
We abandoned our plan of joining Smoke's village and 
proceeding with it to the rendezvou.s, and determined to 
meet The Whirlwind, and go in his company. 

I had been slightly ill for several weeks, but on the third 
night after reaching Fort Laramie a violent pain awoke me, 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 




and I found myself attacked by the same disorder that occa- 
sioned such heavy losses to the army on the Rio Grande. 
In a day and a half I was reduced to extreme weakness, so 
that I could not walk without pain and effort. Having no 

medical adviser, 
nor any choice of 
diet, I resolved to 
throw myself up- 
on Providence for 
recovery, using, 
without regard to 
the disorder, any 
portion of strength 
that might remain 
to me. So on the 
twentieth of June 
we set out from 
Fort Laramie to meet The Whirlwind's village. Though 
aided by the high-bowed "mountain-saddle," I could scarcely 
keep my seat on horseback. Before we left the fort we hired 
another man, a long-haired Canadian, named Raymond, with 
a face like an owl's, contrasting oddly enough with Des- 
lauriers's mercurial countenance. This was not the only 
reinforcement to our party. A vagrant Indian trader, 
named Reynal, joined us, together with his squaw Mar- 
got, and her two nephews, our dandy friend, "The Horse," 
and his younger brother, "The Hail Storm." Thus accom- 
panied we betook ourselves to the prairie, leaving the beaten 
trail, and passing over the desolate hills that flank the val- 
ley of Laramie Creek. In all, Indians and whites, we 
counted eight men and one woman. 

Reynal, the trader, the image of sleek and selfish com- 
placency, carried "The Horse's" dragoon-sword in his 



THE WAR PARTIES. 12$ 

hand, delighting apparently in this useless parade; for, 
from spending half his life among Indians, he had caught 
not only their habits but their ideas. Margot, a female 
animal of more than two hundred pounds' weight, was 
crouched in the basket of a travois, such as I have be- 
fore described ; besides her ponderous bulk, various domes- 
tic utensils were attached to the vehicle, and she led by a 
trail-rope a packhorse, which carried the covering of Rey- 
nal's lodge. Deslauriers walked briskly by the side of 
the cart, and Raymond came behind, swearing at the spare 
horses which it was his business to drive. The restless 
young Indians, their quivers at their backs and their bows 
in their hands, galloped over the hills, often starting a 
wolf or an antelope from the thick growth of wild-sage 
bushes. Shaw and I were in keeping with the rest of the 
rude cavalcade, having, in the failure of other clothing, 
adopted the buckskin attire of the trappers. Henry Chatil- 
lon rode in advance of the whole. Thus we passed hill 
after hill and hollow after hollow, a country arid, broken, 
and so parched by the sun that none of the plants familiar 
to our more favored soil would flourish upon it, though 
there were multitudes of strange medicinal herbs, more 
especially the wild sage, which covered every declivity, 
while cacti were hanging like reptiles at the edges of every 
ravine. At length we ascended a high hill, our horses 
treading upon pebbles of flint, agate, and rough jasper, 
until, gaining the top, we looked down on the wild bot- 
toms of Laramie Creek, which far below us wound like 
a writhing snake from side to side of the narrow interval, 
amid a growth of shattered cotton-wood and ash trees. 
Lines of tall cliffs, white as chalk, shut in this green 
strip of woods and meadow-land, into which we descended 
and encamped for the night. In the morning we passed 



126 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

a wide grassy plain by the river; there was a grove in 
front, and beneath its shadows the ruins of an old trading 
fort of logs. The grove bloomed with myriads of wild 
roses, with their sweet perfume fraught with recollections 
of home. As we emerged from the trees, a rattlesnake, as 
large as a man's arm, and more than four feet long, lay 
coiled on a rock, fiercely rattling and hissing at us; a gray 
hare, twice as large as those of New England, leaped up 
from the tall ferns; curlew flew screaming over our heads, 
and a host of little prairie-dogs sat yelping at us at the 
mouths of their burrows on the dry plain beyond. Sud- 
denly an antelope leaped up from the wild-sage bushes, 
gazed eagerly at us, and then, erecting his white tail, 
stretched away like a greyhoimd. The two Indian boys 
found a white wolf, as large as a calf, in a hollow, and 
giving a sharp yell, they galloped after him ; but the wolf 
leaped into the stream and swam across. Then came the 
crack of a rifle, the bullet whistling harmlessly over his 
head, as he scrambled up the steep declivity, rattling down 
stones and earth into the water below. Advancing a little, 
we beheld, on the farther bank of the stream, a spectacle 
not common even in that region ; for, emerging from among 
the trees, a herd of some two hundred elk came out upon 
the meadow, their antlers clattering as they walked for- 
ward in a dense throng. Seeing us, they broke into a 
run, rushing across the opening and disappearing among 
the trees and scattered groves. On our left was a barren 
prairie, stretching to the horizon; on our right, a deep 
sfulf. with Laramie Creek at the bottom. We found our- 
selves at length at the edge of a steep descent, — a narrow 
valley, with long rank grass and scattered trees, stretching 
before us for a mile or more along the course of the stream. 
Reaching the farther end, we stopped and encamped. A 



THE WAR PARTIES. 12/ 

huge old cotton-wood tree spread its branches horizontally 
over our tent. Laramie Creek, circling before our camp, 
half inclosed us ; it swept along the bottom of a line of 
tall white cliffs that looked down on us from the farther 
bank. There were dense copses on our right; the cliffs, 
too, were half hidden by bushes, though behind us a few 
cotton-wood trees, dotting the green prairie, alone impeded 
the view, and friend or enemy could be discerned in that 
direction at a mile's distance. Here we resolved to re- 
main and await the arrival of The Whirlwind, who would 
certainly pass this way in his progress towards La Bonte's 
camp. To go in search of him was not expedient, both 
on account of the broken and impracticable nature of the 
country, and the uncertainty of his position and move- 
ments ; besides, our horses were almost worn out, and I 
was in no condition to travel. We had good grass, good 
water, tolerable fish from the stream, and plenty of small 
game, such as antelope and deer, though no buffalo. There 
was one little drawback to our satisfaction, — a certain 
extensive tract of bushes and dried grass, just behind 
us, which it was by no means advisable to enter, since 
it sheltered a numerous brood of rattlesnakes. Henry 
Chatillon again despatched "The Horse" to the village, 
with a message to his squaw that she and her relatives 
should leave the rest and push on as rapidly as possible 
to our camp. 

Our daily routine soon became as regular as that of a 
well-ordered household. The weather-beaten old tree was 
in the centre; our rifles generally rested against its vast 
trunk, and our saddles were flung on the ground around 
it ; its distorted roots were so twisted as to form one or 
two convenient arm-chairs, where we could sit in the shade 
and read or smoke; but meal-times became, on the whole, 



128 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the most interesting hours of the day and a bountiful pro- 
vision was made for them. An antelope or a deer usually- 
swung from a bough, and haunches were suspended against 
the trunk. That camp is daguerrotyped on my memory, — 
the old tree, the white tent, with Shaw sleeping in the 
shadow of it, and Reynal's miserable lodge close by the 
bank of the stream. It was a wretched oven-shaped struc- 
ture, made of begrimed and tattered buffalo-hides stretched 
over a frame of poles; one side was open, and at the side 
of the opening hung the powder-horn and bullet-pouch of 
the owner, together with his long red pipe, and a rich 
quiver of otter-skin, with a bow and arrows; for Reynal, 
an Indian in most things but color, chose to hunt buffalo 
with these primitive weapons. In the darkness of this 
cavern-like habitation might be discerned Madame Mar- 
got, her overgrown bulk stowed away among her domestic 
implements, furs, robes, blankets, and painted cases of 
raw hide, in which dried meat is kept. Here she sat 
from sunrise to sunset, an impersonation of gluttony and 
laziness, while her affectionate proprietor was smoking, 
or begging petty gifts from us, or telling lies concerning his 
own achievements, or perchance engaged in the more profit- 
able occupation of cooking some preparation of prairie 
delicacies. Reynal was an adept at this work; he and 
Deslauriers have joined forces, and are hard at work to- 
gether over the fire, while Raymond spreads, by way of 
table-cloth, a buffalo-hide carefully whitened with pipe-clay, 
on the grass before the tent. Hera he arranges the teacups 
and plates; and then creeping on all fours, like a dog, 
thrusts his head in at the opening of the tent. For a 
moment we see his round, owlish eyes rolling wildly, as 
if the idea he came to communicate had suddenly escaped 
him; then collecting his scattered thoughts, as if by an 



THE WAR PARTIES. 129 

effort, he informs us that supper is ready, and instantly 
withdraws. 

When sunset came, and at that hour the wild and deso- 
late scene would assume a new aspect, the horses were 
driven in. They had been grazing all day in the neigh- 
boring meadow, but now they were picketed close about 
the camp. As the prairie darkened we sat and conversed 
around the fire, until, becoming drowsy, we spread our 
saddles on the ground, wrapped our blankets around us, 
and lay down. We never placed a guard, having by this 
time become too indolent; but Henry Chatillon folded 
his loaded rifle in the same blanket with himself, observ- 
ing that he always took it to bed with him when he 
'camped in that place. Henry was too bold a man to 
use such a precaution without good cause. We had a hint 
now and then that our situation was none of the safest; 
several Crow war-parties were known to be in the vicinity, 
and one of them, that passed here some time before, had 
peeled the bark from a neighboring tree, and engraved upon 
the white wood certain hieroglyphics to signify that they 
had invaded the territories of their enemies, the Dakota, 
and set them at defiance. One morning a thick mist cov- 
ered the whole country. Shaw and Henry went out to 
ride, and soon came back with a startling piece of intelli- 
gence; they had found within rifie-shot of our camp the re- 
cent trail of about thirty horsemen. They could not be 
whites, and they could not be Dakota, since we knew no 
such parties to be in the neighborhood ; therefore they must 
be Crows. Thanks to that friendly mist, we had escaped 
a hard battle; they would inevitably have attacked us and 
our Indian companions had they seen our camp. What- 
ever doubts we might have entertained were removed a 
day or two after by two or three Dakota, who came 

9 



I30 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

to US with an account of having hidden in a ravine on 
that very morning, from whence they saw and counted 
the Crows; they said that they followed them, carefully 
keeping out of sight, as they passed up Chugwater; that 
here the Crows discovered five dead bodies of Dakota, 
placed according to custom in trees, and flinging them to 
the ground, held their guns against them and blew them 
to atoms. 

If our camp Was not altogether safe, still it was com- 
fortable enough; at least it was so to Shaw, for I was 
tormented with illness and vexed by the delay in the 
accomplishment of my designs. When a respite in my 
disorder gave me some returning strength, I rode out well 
armed upon the prairie, or bathed with Shaw in the 
stream, or waged a petty warfare with the inhabitants of 
a neighboring prairie-dog village. Around our fire at 
night we employed ourselves in inveighing against the 
fickleness and inconstancy of Indians, and execrating The 
Whirlwind and all his crew. At last the thing grew 
insufferable. 

"To-morrow morning," said I, "I will start for the fort, 
and see if I can hear any news there." Late that evening, 
when the fire had sunk low and all the camp were asleep, 
a loud cry sounded from the darkness. Henry leaped up, 
recognized the voice, replied to it, and our dandy friend, 
"The Horse," rode in among us, just returned from his 
mission to the village. He coolly picketed his mare with- 
out saying a word, sat down by the fire, and began to eat; 
but his imperturbable philosophy was too much for our 
patience. Where was the village.^ — about fifty miles south 
of us ; it was moving slowly, and would not arrive in less 
than a week. And where was Henry's squaw .'' — coming 
as fast as she could, with Mahto-Tatonka and the rest of 



THE WAR PARTIES. 



131 



her brothers, but she would never reach us, for she was 
dying, and asking every moment for Henry. Henry's 
manly face became clouded and downcast; he said that if 
we were willing he would go in the 
morning to find her, at which Shaw 
offered to accompany him. 

We saddled our horses at sunrise. 
Reynal protested vehemently 
against being left alone, 
with nobody but the 
two Canadians and the 
young Indians, when 
enemies were in the 
neighborhood. Disre- 
garding his complaints, 
we left him, and, com- 
ing to the mouth of 
Chugwater, separated, 
Shaw and Henry turn- 
ing to the right, up 
the bank of the stream, 
while I made for the 
fort. 

Taking leave for 
a while of 
my friend z^^^ 
and the unfortunate <5^1. 
squaw, I will relate ^^ 
by way of episode 

what I saw and did at Fort Laramie. It was not more 
than eighteen miles distant, and I reached it in three hours. 
A shrivelled little figure, wrapped from head to foot in a 
dingy white Canadian capote, stood in the gateway, holding 




132 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

by a cord of bull-hide a shaggy wild-horse, which he had 
lately caught. His sharp prominent features, and his keen, 
snake-like eyes, looked out from beneath the shadowy hood 
of the capote, which was drawn over his head like the cowl 
of a Capuchin friar. His face was like an old piece of 
leather, and his mouth spread from ear to ear. Extend- 
ing his long, wiry hand, he welcomed me with something 
more cordial than the ordinary cold salute of an Indian, 
for we were excellent friends. We had made an exchange 
of horses to our mutual advantage; and Paul, thinking 
himself well treated, had declared everywhere that the 
white man had a good heart. He was a Dakota from 
the Missouri, a reputed son of the half-breed interpreter, 
Pierre Dorion, so often mentioned in Irving's "Astoria." 
He said that he was going to Richard's trading-house to 
sell his horse to some emigrants who were encamped 
there, and asked me to go with him. We forded the 
stream together, Paul dragging his wild charge behind 
him. As we passed over the sandy plains beyond, he 
grew communicative. Paul was a cosmopolitan in his 
way; he had been to the settlements of the whites, and 
visited in peace and war most of the tribes within the 
range of a thousand miles. He spoke a jargon of I-^rench 
and another of English, yet nevertheless he was a thorough 
Indian; and as he told of the bloody deeds of his own 
people against their enemies, his little eyes would glitter 
with a fierce lustre. He told how the Dakota extermi- 
nated a village of the Hohays on the Upper Missouri, 
slaughtering men, women, and children; and how, in over- 
whelming force, they cut off sixteen of the brave Dela- 
wares, who fought like wolves to the last, amid the throng 
of their enemies. He told me also another story, which 
I did not believe until I had heard it confirmed from so 



THE WAR PARTIES. 



^33 



many independent sources 
that my skepticism was 
almost overcome. 

Six years ago, a fellow- 
named Jim Beckworth, a 
mon.r^rel of French, Amer- 
ican, and negro blood, was 
trading for the Fur Com- 
pany, in a large village of 
the Crows. Jim Beck- 
worth was last summer at 
St. Louis. He is a ruf- 
fian of the worst stamp; 
bloody and treacherous, ' 
without honor or honesty; 
such at least is the char- 
acter he bears upon the 
prairie. Yet in his case 
the standard rules of char- 
acter fail, for though he 
will stab a man in his 
sleep, he will also perform 
desperate acts of daring; 
such, for instance, as the 
following: While he was 
in the Crow village, a 
Blackfoot war-party, be- 
tween thirty and forty in 
number, came stealing 
through the country, kill- 
ing stragglers and carry- 
ing off horses. The Crow 
warriors got upon their 




134 THE ORECJON TRAIL. 

trail and pressed them so closely that they could not 
escape; at which the Blackfeet, throwing up a semi-cir- 
cular breastwork of logs at the foot of a precipice, 
coolly awaited their approach. The logs and sticks, piled 
four or five feet high, protected them in front. The Crows 
might have swept over the breastwork and exterminated 
their enemies; but though outnumbering them tenfold, 
they did not dream of storming the little fortification. 
Such a proceeding would be altogether repugnant to their 
notions of warfare. Whooping and yelling, and jumping 
from side to side like devils incarnate, they showered 
bullets and arrows upon the logs; not a Blackfoot was 
hurt, but several Crows, in spite of their leaping and 
dodging, were shot down. In this childish manner the 
fight went on for .an hour or two. Now and then a Crow 
warrior in an ecstasy of valor and vainglory would scream 
out his war-song, boast himself the bravest and greatest 
of mankind, grasp his hatchet, rush up, strike it upon the 
breastwork, and then as he retreated to his companions, 
fall dead under a shower of arrows; yet no combined at- 
tack was made. The Blackfeet remained secure in their 
intrenchment. At last Jim Beckworth lost patience. 

" You are all fools and old women," he said to the Crows; 
" come with me, if any of you are brave enough, and I 
will show you how to fight." 

He threw off his trapper's frock of buckskin and stripped 
himself naked, like the Indians themselves. He left his 
rifle on the ground, took in his hand a small light hatchet, 
and ran over the prairie to the right, concealed by a hol- 
low from the eyes of the Blackfeet. Then climbing up 
the rocks, he gained the top of the precipice behind them. 
Forty or fifty young Crow warriors followed him. By the 
cries and whoops that rose from below he knew that the 



THE WAR PARTIES. 135 

Klackfeet were just beneath him; and runnino forward he 
leaped down the rock into the midst of them. As he fell 
he caught one by the long loose hair, and dragging him 
down tomahawked him; then grasping another by the 
belt at his waist, he struck him also a stunning blow, 
and gaining his feet, shouted the Crow war-cry. He 
swung his hatchet so fiercely around him that the aston- 
ished Blackfeet bore back and gave him room. He might, 
had he chosen, have leaped over the breastwork and es- 
caped ; but this was not necessary, for with devilish yells 
the Crow warriors came dropping in quick succession over 
the rock among their enemies. The main body of the 
Crows, too, answered the cry from the front, and rushed up 
simultaneously. The convulsive struggle within the breast- 
work was frightful ; for an instant the Blackfeet fought 
and yelled like pent-up tigers; but the butchery was soon 
complete, and the mangled bodies lay piled together under 
the precipice. Not a Blackfoot made his escape. 

As Paul finished his story we came in sight of Richard's 
Fort, a disorderly crowd of men around it, and an emigrant 
camp a little in front. 

"Now, Paul," said I, "where are your Minneconjou 
lodges .'' " 

"Not come yet," said Paul; "maybe come to-morrow." 

Two large villages of a band of Dakota had come three 
hundred miles from the Missouri, to join in the war, and 
they were expected to reach Richard's that morning. There 
was as yet no sign of their approach; so pushing through 
a noisy, drunken crowd, I entered an apartment of logs and 
mud, the largest in the fort; it was full of men of various 
races and complexions, all more or less drunk. A company 
of California emigrants, it seemed, had made the discovery 
at this late day that they had encumbered themselves with 



136 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



too many supplies for their journey. A part, therefore, 
they had thrown away, or sold at great loss to the traders; 
but had determined to get rid of their very copious stock 
of Missouri whiskey, by drinking it on the spot. Here 
were maudlin squaws stretched on piles of buffalo-robes; 
squalid Mexicans, armed with bows and arrows; In- 
dians sedately drunk; long-haired Canadians and 
trappers, and American backwoodsmen in brown 
homespun, the well-beloved pistol and bowie- 
knife displayed openly at their sides. In 
the middle of the room a tall, lank 
man, with a dingy broadcloth coat, 
was haranguing the company in 
the style of the stump orator. 
With one hand he sawed 
the air, and with the 
other clutched firmly a brown 
whiskey-jug, which he applied 
every moment to his lips, forgetting that he 
had drained the contents long ago. Richard for- 
mally introduced me to this personage, who was no less a 
man than Colonel R , once the leader of the party. In- 
stantly the Colonel, seizing me, in the absence of buttons, by 
the leather fringes of my frock, began to define his posi- 
tion. His men, he said, had mutinied and deposed him; 
but still he exercised over them the influence of a superior 
mind; in all but the name he was yet their chief. As the 
Colonel spoke I looked round on the wild assemblage, and 
could not help thinking that he was but ill-fitted to con- 
duct such men across the deserts to California. Conspicu- 
ous among the rest stood three tall young men, grandsons 
of Daniel Boone. They had clearly inherited the adven- 
turous character of that prince of pioneers; but I saw no 




THE WAR PARTIES. 



137 



signs of the quiet and tranquil spirit that so remarkably 
distinguished him. 

Fearful was the fate that, months after, overtook some 
of the members of that party. General Kearney, on his 
late return from California, brought back their story. 
They were interrupted by the deep 
snows among the mountains, and, 
maddened by cold and hunger, fed 
upon each other's flesh! 

I got tired of the confusion. 
"Come, Paul," said I, "we will be 
off." Paul sat in the sun, under 
the wall of the fort. He jumped 
up, mounted, and we rode towards 
Fort Laramie. When we reached 
it, a man came out of the gate 
with a pack at his back and a rifle on 
his shoulder; others were gathering 
about him, shaking him by the hand, 
as if taking leave. I thought it a 
strange thing that a man should 
set out alone and on foot for the 
prairie. I soon got an explana- 
tion. Perrault — this, if I recol- 
lect right, was the Canadian's 
name — had quarrelled with ^ 
the bourgeois, and the fort 
was too hot to hold him. 
Bordeaux, inflated with his transient authority, had abused 
him, and received a blow in return. The men then sprang 
at each other, and grappled in the middle of the fort. Bor- 
deau.x was down in an instant, at the mercy of the incensed 
Canadian; had not an old Indian, the brother of his squaw, 




138 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

seized hold of his antagonist, it would have fared ill with 
him. Perrault broke loose from the old Indian, and both 
the white men ran to their rooms for their guns; but when 
Bordeaux, looking from his door, saw the Canadian, gun in 
hand, standing in the area and calling on him to come 
out and fight, his heart failed him; he chose to remain 
where he was. In vain the old Indian, scandalized by his 
brother-in-law's cowardice, called upon him to go to the 
prairie and fight it out in the white man's manner; and 
Bordeaux's own squaw, equally incensed, screamed to her 
lord and master that he was a dog and an old woman. It 
all availed nothing. Bordeaux's prudence got the better 
of his valor, and he would not stir. Perrault stood shower- 
ing opprobrious epithets at the recreant bourgeois, till, 
growing tired of this, he made up a pack of dried meat, and 
slinging it at his back, set out alone for Fort Pierre, on 
the Missouri, a distance of three hundred miles, over a 
desert country, full of hostile Indians. 

I remained in the fort that night. In the morning, as 
I was coming out from breakfast, talking with a trader 
named McCluskey, I saw a strange Indian leaning against 
the side of the gate. He was a tall, strong man, with 
heavy features. 

" Who is he .? " I asked. 

"That 's The Whirlwind," said McClu.skey. " He is the 
fellow that made all this stir about the war. It 's always 
the way with the Sioux; they never stop cutting each 
other's throats, — it 's all they are fit for, — instead of sit- 
ting in their lodges, and getting robes to trade with us in 
the winter. If this war goes on, we '11 make a poor trade 
of it next season, I reckon." 

And this was the opinion of all the traders, who were 
vehemently opposed to the war, from the injury that it 



THE WAR PARTIES. 139 

must occasion to their interests. The Whirlwind left his 
village the day before to make a visit to the fort. His 
warlike ardor had abated not a little since he first con- 
ceived the design of avenging his son's death. The long 
and complicated preparations for the expedition were too 
much for his fickle disposition. That morning Bordeaux 
fastened upon him, made him presents, and told him that 
if he went to war he would destroy his horses and kill no 
buffalo to trade with the white men ; in short, that he was 
a fool to think of such a thing, and had better make up 
his mind to sit quietly in his lodge and smoke his pipe, 
like a wise man. The Whirlwind's purpose was evidently 
shaken ; he had become tired, like a child, of his favorite 
plan. Bordeaux exult ingiy predicted that he would not 
go to war. My philanthropy was no match for my curi- 
osity, and I was vexed at the possibility that after all I 
might lose the rare opportunity of seeing the ceremonies 
of war. The Whirlwind, however, had merely thrown the 
firebrand; the conflagration was become general. All the 
western bands of the Dakota were bent on war; and, as 
I heard from McCluskey, six large villages were already 
gathered on a little stream, forty miles distant, and were 
daily calling to the Great Spirit to aid them in their en- 
terprise. McCluskey had just left them, and represented 
them as on their way to La Bonte's camp, which they 
would reach in a week, unless they should learn that there 
ivere no buffalo there. I did not like this condition, for 
buffalo this season were rare in the neighborhood. There 
were also the two Minneconjou villages that I mentioned 
before; but about noon an Indian came from Richard's 
Fort with the news that they were quarrelling, breaking 
up, and dispersing. So much for the whiskey of the emi- 
grants! Finding themselves unable to drink the whole, 



140 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

they had sold the residue to these Indians, and it needed 
no prophet to foretell the result; a spark dropped into a 
powder-magazine would not have produced a quicker effect. 
Instantly the old jealousies and rivalries and smothered 
feuds that exist in an Indian village broke out into furi- 
ous quarrels. They forgot the warlike enterprise that had 
already brought them three hundred miles. They seemed 
like ungoverned children inflamed with the fiercest passions 
of men. Several of them were stabbed in the drunken 
tumult; and in the morning they scattered and moved back 
towards the Missouri in small parties. I feared that, after 
all, the long-projected meeting and the ceremonies that 
were to attend it might never take place, and I should lose 
so admirable an opportunity of seeing the Indian under his 
most fearful and characteristic aspect; however, in foregoing 
this, I should avoid a very fair probability of being plundered 
and stripped, and it might be, stabbed or shot into the bar- 
gain. Consoling myself with this reflection, I prepared 
to carry the news, such as it was, to the camp. 

I caught my horse, and to my vexation found that he had 
lost a shoe and broken his hoof against the rocks. Horses 
are shod at Fort Laramie at the moderate rate of three 
dollars a foot; so I tied Hendrick to a beam in the corral, 
and summoned Roubidou the blacksmith. Roubidou, with 
the hoof between his knees, was at work with hammer 
and file, and I was inspecting the process, when a strange 
voice addressed me. 

"Two more gone under! Well, there's more of us left 
yet. Here 's Gingras and me off to the mountains to- 
morrow. Our turn will come next, I suppose. It 's a 
hard life, anyhow!" 

I looked up and saw a man, not much more than five feet 
high, but of very square and strong proportions. In appear- 



THE WAR PARTIES. 141 

ance he was particularly dingy; for his old buck-skin frock 
was black and polished with time and grease, and his belt, 
knife, pouch, and powder-horn appeared to have seen the 
roughest service. The first joint of each foot was entirely 
gone, having been frozen off several winters before, and 
his moccasins were curtailed in proportion. His whole 
appearan-ce and equipment bespoke the "free trapper." 
He had a round, ruddy face, animated with a spirit of 
carelessness and gayety not at all in accordance with the 
words he had just spoken. 

" ' Two more gone, ' " said I ; " what do you mean by that ? " 

"Oh, the Arapahoes have just killed two of us in the 
mountains. Old Bull-Tail has come to tell us. They 
stabbed one behind his back, and shot the other with his 
own rifle. That's the way we live here! I mean to give 
up trapping after this year. My squaw says she wants a 
pacing horse and some red ribbons; I'll make enough 
beaver to get them for her, and then I 'm done! I'll go 
below and live on a farm." 

"Your bones will dry on the prairie, Rouleau!" said 
another trapper, who was standing by, — a strong, brutal- 
looking fellow, with a face as surly as a bull-dog's. 

Rouleau only laughed, and began to hum a tune, and 
shuffle a dance on his stumps of feet. 

"You'll see us, before long, passing up your way," said 
the other man. 

"Well," said I, "stop and take a cup of- coffee with us;" 
and, as it was late in the afternoon, I prepared to leave the 
fort at once. 

As I rode out, a train of emigrant wagons was passing 
across the stream. " VVhar are ye goin', stranger.!*" Thus 
I was saluted by two or three voices at once. 

"About eighteen miles up the creek." 



142 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

" It 's mighty late to be going that far! Make haste, ye 'd 
better, and keep a bright look-out for Indians!" 

I thought the advice too good to be neglected. Fording 
the stream, 1 passed at a round trot over the plains beyond. 
But "the more haste, the worse speed." I proved the truth 
of the proverb by the time I reached the hills three miles 
from the fort. The trail was faintly marked, and, riding 
forward with more rapidity than caution, I lost sight of it. 
I kept on in a direct line, guided by Laramie Creek, which 
I could see at intervals darkly glistening in the evening 
sun, at the bottom of the woody gulf on my right. Half 
an hour before sunset I came upon its banks. There was 
something exciting in the wild solitude of the place. An 
antelope sprang suddenly from the sage-bushes before me. 
As he leaped gracefully not thirty yards before my horse, 
I fired, and instantly he spun round and fell. Quite sure 
of him, I walked my horse towards him, leisurely reload- 
ing my rifle, when to my surprise he sprang up and trotted 
rapidly away on three legs into the dark recesses of the 
hills, whither I had no time to follow. Ten minutes 
after, I was passing along the bottom of a deep valley, 
and, chancing to look behind me, I saw in the dim light 
that something was following. Supposing it to be a wolf, 
I slid from my seat and sat down behind my horse to 
shoot it; but as it came up, I saw by its motions that it 
was another antelope. It approached within a hundred 
yards, arched its neck, and gazed intently. I levelled at 
the white spot on its breast, and was about to fire when it 
started off, ran first to one side and then to the other, 
like a vessel tacking against the wind, and at last 
stretched away at full speed. Then it stopped again, 
looked curiously behind it, and trotted up as before; but 
not so boldly, for it soon paused and stood gazing at me. 



THE WAR PARTIES. 143 

I fired; it leaped upward and fell upon its tracks. Meas- 
uring the distance, I found it two hundred and four paces. 
When I stood by his side, the antelope turned his expiring 
eye upward. It was like a beautiful woman's, dark and 
bright. "Fortunate that I am in a hurry," thought I; "I 
might be troubled with remorse if I had time for it." 

Cutting the animal up, not in the most skilful manner, 
I hung the meat at the back of my saddle, and rode on 
again. The hills (I could not remember one of them) 
closed around me. "It is too late," thought I, "to go for- 
ward. I will stay here to-night, and look for the path in 
the morning." As a last effort, however, I ascended a high 
hill, from which, to my great satisfaction, I could see 
Laramie Creek stretching before me, twisting from side to 
side amid ragged patches of timber; and far off, close be- 
neath the shadows of the trees, the ruins of the old trading- 
fort were visible. I reached them at twilight. It was far 
from pleasant, in that uncertain light, to be pushing through 
the dense trees and bushes of the grove beyond. I listened 
an.xiously for the foot-fall of man or beast. Nothing was 
stirring but one harmless brown bird, chirping among the 
branches. I was glad when I gained the open prairie once 
more, where I could see if anything approached. When 
I came to the mouth of Chugwater, it was totally dark. 
Slackening the reins, I let my horse take his own course. 
He trotted on with unerring instinct, and by nine o'clock 
was scrambling down the steep descent into the meadows 
where we were encamped. While I was looking in vain 
for the light of the fire, Hendrick, with keener percep- 
tions, gave a loud neigh, which was immediately answered 
by another neigh from the distance. In a moment I was 
hailed from the darkness by the voice of Reynal, who had 
come out, rifle in hand, to see who was approaching. 



144 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

He, with his squaw, the two Canadians and the Indian 
boys, were the sole inmates of the camp, Shaw and Henry 
Chatillon being still absent. At noon of the following 
day they came back, their horses looking none the better 
for the journey. Henry seemed dejected. The woman 
was dead, and his children must henceforward be exposed, 
without a i)roteclor, to the hardships and vicissitudes of 
Indian life. Even in the midst of his grief he had not 
forgotten his attachment to his bourgeois, for he had pro- 
cured among his Indian relatives two beautifully orna- 
mented buffalo-robes, which he spread on the ground as 
a present to us. 

Shaw lighted his pipe, and told me in a few words the 
history of his journey. When I went to the fort they left 
me as I mentioned, at the mouth of Chugwater. They 
followed the course of the little stream all day, traversing 
a desolate and barren country. Several times they came 
upon the fresh traces of a large war-party, the same, no 
doubt, from whom we had so narrowly escaped an attack. 
At an hour before sunset, without encountering a human 
being by the way, they came upon the lodges of the squaw 
and her brothers, who, in compliance with Henry's mes- 
sage, had left the Indian village in order to join us at our 
camp. The lodges were already pitched, five in number, 
by the side of the stream. The woman lay in one of 
them, reduced to a mere skeleton. For some time she 
had been unable to move or speak. Indeed, nothing had 
kept her alive but the hope of seeing Henry, to whom she 
was strongly and faithfully attached. No sooner did he 
enter the lodge than she revived, and she talked with him 
the greater part of the night. Early in the morning she 
was lifted into a ti'avois, and the whole party set out 
towards our camp. There were but five warriors ; the rest 



THE WAR PARTIES. 145 



were women and children. They were all in great alarm 
at the proximity of the Crow war-party, who would cer- 
tainly have killed them without mercy had they met. 
They had advanced only a mile or two when they dis- 
cerned a horseman, far off, on the edge of the horizon. 
They all stopped, gathering together in the greatest anx- 
iety, from which they did not recover until long after the 
horseman disappeared; then they set out again. Henry was 
riding with Shaw a few rods in advance of the Indians, 
when Mahto-Tatonka, a younger brother of the woman, 
hastily called after them. Turning back, they found all 
the Indians crowded around the travois in which the 
woman was lying. They reached her just in time to hear 
the death-rattle in her throat. In a moment she lay dead 
in the basket of the vehicle. A complete stillness suc- 
ceeded; then the Indians raised in concert their cries of 
lamentation over the corpse, and among them Shaw clearly 
distinguished those strange sounds resembling the word 
" Halleluyah," which, together with some other accidental 
coincidences, has given rise to the absurd notion that the 
Indians are descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel. 

The Indian usage required that Henry, as well as the 
other relatives of the woman, should make valuable pres- 
ents, to be placed by the side of the body at its last rest- 
ing-place. Leaving the Indians, he and Shaw set out for 
the camp, and reached it, as we have seen, by hard push- 
ing, at about noon. Having obtained the necessary arti- 
cles, they immediately returned. It was very late and 
quite dark when they again reached the lodges. They 
were all placed in a deep hollow among dreary hills. 
Four of them were just visible through the gloom, but 
the fifth and largest was illumined by the blaze of a fire 
within, glowing through the half-transparent covering of 

10 



146 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

raw hides. There was a perfect stillness as they approached. 
The lodges seemed without a tenant. Not a living thing 
was stirring; there was something awful in the scene. 
They rode up to the entrance of the lodge, and there was no 
sound but the tramp of their horses. A squaw came out 
and took charge of the animals, without speaking a word. 
Entering, they found the lodge crowded with Indians; a 
fire was burning in the middle, and the mourners encircled 
it in a triple row. Room was made for the new-comers at 
the head of the lodge, a robe spread for them to sit upon, 
and a pipe lighted and handed to them in perfect silence. 
Thus they passed the greater part of the night. At times 
the fire would subside into a heap of embers, until the dark 
figures seated around it were scarcely visible; then a squaw 
would drop upon it a piece of buffalo-fat, and a bright flame 
instantly springing up would reveal the crowd of wild faces, 
motionless as bronze. The silence continued unbroken. 
It was a relief to Shaw when daylight returned and he could 
escape from this house of mourning. He and Henry pre- 
pared to return homeward ; first, however, they placed the 
presents they had brought near the body of the squaw, which, 
gaudily attired, remained in a sitting posture in one of the 
lodges. A fine horse was picketed not far off, destined to be 
killed that morning for the service of her spirit; for the 
woman was lame, and could not travel on foot over the 
dismal prairies to the villages of the dead. Food, too, was 
provided, and household implements, for her use upon this 
last journey. 

Henry left her to the care of her relatives, and came 
immediately with Shaw to the camp. It was some time 
before he entirely recovered from his dejection. 




7RE«" 



CHAPTER XI. 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 



REYNAL heard guns fired one day at the distance of a 
mile or two from the camp. He grew nervous in- 
stantly. Visions of Crow war-parties began to haunt his 
imagination; and when we returned (for we were all ab- 
sent) he renewed his complaints about being left alone 
with the Canadians and the squaw. The day after, the 
cause of the alarm appeared. Four trappers, called Morin, 
Saraphin, Rouleau, and Gingras, came to our camp and 
joined us. They it was who fired the guns, and disturbed 
the dreams of our confederate Reynal. They soon en- 
camped by our side. Their rifles, dingy and battered with 



148 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

hard service, rested with ours against the old tree ; their 
strong rude saddles, their buffalo-robes, their traps, and a 
few rough and simple articles of their travelling equipment 
were piled near our tent. Their mountain-horses were 
turned out to graze in the meadow among our own; and 
the men themselves, no less rough and hardy, used to lie 
half the day in the shade of our tree, lolling on the grass, 
lazily smoking, and telling stories of their adventures; and 
I defy the annals of chivalry to furnish the record of a 
life more wild and perilous than that of a Rocky Moun- 
tain trapper. 

With this efficient reinforcement the agitation of Rey- 
nal's nerves subsided. We began to conceive a sort of 
attachment to our old camping ground; yet it was time 
to change our quarters, since remaining too long on one 
spot must lead to unpleasant results, not to be borne un 
less in case of dire necessity. The grass no longer pre 
sented a smooth surface of turf; it was trampled into mud 
and clay. So we removed to another old tree, larger yet, 
that grew by the side of the river a furlong distant. Its 
trunk was full six feet in diameter; on one side it was 
marked by a party of Indians with various inexplicable 
hieroglyphics, commemorating some warlike enterprise, 
and aloft among the branches were the remains of a scaf- 
fold, where dead bodies had once been deposited, after 
the Indian manner. 

"There comes Bull-Bear," said Henry Chatillon, as we 
sat on the grass at dinner. Looking up, we saw several 
horsemen coming over the neighboring hill, and in a mo- 
ment four stately young men rode up and dismounted. 
One of them was Bull-Bear, or Mahto-Tatonka, a com- 
pound name which he inherited from his father, the prin- 
cipal chief in the Ogillallah band. One of his brothers 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 149 

and two other young men accompanied him. We shook 
hands with the visitors, and when we had finished our meal 
— for this is the approved manner of entertaining Indians, 
even the best of them — we handed to each a tin cup of 
coffee and a biscuit, at which they ejaculated from the 
bottom of their throats, ''How! how!" a monosyllable by 
which a Dakota contrives to express half the emotions 
of which he is capable. Then we lighted the pipe, and 
passed it to them as they squatted on the ground. 

"Where is the village .-* " 

"There," said Mahto-Tatonka, pointing southward; "it 
will come in two days." 

"Will they go to the war.^* " 

"Yes." 

No man is a philanthropist on the prairie. We wel- 
comed this news cordially, and congratulated ourselves 
that Bordeaux's interested efforts to divert The Whirl- 
wind from his congenial vocation of bloodshed had failed 
of success, and that no further obstacles would interpose 
between us and our plan of repairing to the rendezvous 
at La Bonte's camp. 

For that and several succeeding days Mahto-Tatonka and 
his friends remained our guests. They devoured the relics 
of our meals ; they filled the pipe for us, and also helped 
us to smoke it. Sometimes they stretched themselves side 
by side in the shade, indulging in raillery and equivocal 
jokes, ill becoming the dignity of brave and aspiring war- 
riors, such as tv/o of them in reality were. 

Two days dragged away, and on the morning of the third 
we hoped confidently to see the Indian village. It did not 
come ; so we rode out to look for it. In place of the 
eight hundred Indians we expected, we met one solitary 
savage riding towards us over the prairie, who told us that 



I50 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the Indians had changed their plan, and would not come 
within three days. Taking along with us this messenger 
of evil tidings, we retraced our footsteps to the camp, 
amusing ourselves by the way with execrating Indian in- 
constancy. When we came in sight of our little white 
tent under the big tree, we saw that it no longer stood 
alone. A huge old lodge was erected by its side, dis- 
colored by rain and storms, rotten with age, with the 
uncouth figures of horses and men and outstretched hands 
that were painted upon it well-nigh obliterated. The 
long poles which supported this squalid habitation thrust 
themselves rakishly out from its pointed top, and over its 
entrance were suspended a " medicine-pipe " and various 
other implements of the magic art. While we were yet 
at a distance we observed a greatly increased population, 
of various colors and dimensions, swarming about our quiet 
encampment. Morin, the trapper, having been absent for 
a day or two, had returned, it seemed, bringing all his 
family with him. He had taken to himself a wife, for 
whom he had paid the established price of one horse. 
This looks cheap at first sight, but in truth the purchase 
of a squaw is a transaction which no man should enter 
into without mature deliberation, since it involves not 
only the payment of the price, but the burden of feeding 
and supporting a rapacious horde of the bride's relatives, 
who hold themselves entitled to feed upon the indiscreet 
white man. They gather about him like leeches, and drain 
hmi of all he has. 

Morin had not made a distinguished match. His bride's 
relatives occupied but a contemptible position in Ogillallah 
society; for among these democrats of the prairie, as among 
others more civilized, there are virtual distinctions of rank 
and place. Morin's partner was not the most beautiful of 

• 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 15' 

her sex, and he had the bad taste to array her in an old 
calico gown, bought from an emigrant woman, instead of 
the neat tunic of whitened deer-skin usually worn by the 
squaws. The moving spirit of the establishment was an 
old hag of eighty. Human imagination never conceived 
hobgoblin or witch more ugly than she. You could count 
all her ribs through the wrinkles of her leathery skin. 
Her withered face more resembled an old' skull than the 
countenance of a living being, even to the hollow, dark- 
ened sockets, at the bottom of which glittered her little 
black eyes. Her arms had dwindled into nothing but 
whip-cord and wire. Her hair, half black, half gray, hung 
in total neglect nearly to the ground, and her sole gar- 
ment consisted of the remnant of a discarded buffalo-robe 
tied round her waist with a string of hide. Yet the old 
squaw's meagre anatomy was wonderfully strong. She 
pitched the lodge, packed the horses, and did the hardest 
labor of the camp. From morning till night she bustled 
about the lodge, screaming like a screech-owl when any- 
thing displeased her. Her brother, a "medicine-man," or 
magician, was as gaunt and sinewy as herself. His mouth 
spread from ear to ear, and his appetite, as we had 
occasion to learn, was ravenous in proportion. The (jther 
inmates of the lodge were a young bride and bridegroom, 
the latter one of those idle, good-for-nothing fellows who 
infest an Indian village as well as more civilized com- 
munities. He was fit neither for hunting nor war, as one 
might see from the stolid, unmeaning expression of his 
face. The happy pair had just entered upon the honey- 
moon. They would stretch a buffalo-robe upon poles to 
protect them from the sun, and spreading under it a 
couch of furs, would sit affectionately side by side for 
half the day, though I could not discover that any conver- 



152 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

sation passed between them. Probably they had nothing to 
say; for an Indian's supply of topics for conversation is far 
from being copious. There were half a dozen children, 
too, playing and whooping about the camp, shooting birds 
with little bows and arrows, or making miniature lodges 
of sticks, as children of a different complexion build houses 
of blocks. 

A day passed, and Indians began rapidly to come in. 
Parties of two, three, or more would ride up and silently 
seat themselves on the grass. The fourth day came at 
last, when about noon horsemen appeared in view on the 
top of the neighboring ridge. Behind followed a wild 
procession, hurrying in disorder down the hill and over 
the plain below; horses, mules, and dogs, heavily-burdened 
travois, mounted warriors, squaws walking amid the throng, 
and a host of children. For a full half-hour they con- 
tinued to pour down; and keeping directly to the bend 
of the stream, within a furlong of us, they soon as- 
sembled there, a dark and confused throng, until, as if by 
magic, a hundred and fifty tall lodges sprang up. The 
lonely plain was transformed into the site of a swarming 
encampment. Countless horses were soon grazing over 
the meadows around us, and the prairie was animated by 
restless figures careering on horseback, or sedately stalk- 
ing in their long white robes. The Whirlwind was come 
at last. One question yet remained to be answered: "Will 
he go to the war in order that we, with so respectable an 
escort, may pass over to the somewhat perilous rendezvous 
at La Bonte's camp.?" 

This still remained in doubt. Characteristic indecision 
perplexed their councils. Indians cannot act in large 
bodies. Though their object be of the highest impor- 
tance, they cannot combine to attain it by a series of con- 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 153 

nectecl efforts. King Philip, Pontiac, and Tecumseh, all 
felt this to their cost. The Ogillallah once had a war- 
chiet who could control them ; but he was dead, and now 
they were left to the sway of their own unsteady impulses. 

As this Indian village and its inhabitants will hold a 
prominent place in the rest of the story, perhaps it may 
not be amiss to glance for an instant at the savage people 
of which they form a part. The Dakota, or Sioux, range 
over a vast territory, from the river St. Peter to the 
Rocky Mountains. They are divided into independent 
bands, united under no central government, and acknowl- 
edging no common head. The same language, usages, and 
superstitions form the sole bond between them. They do 
not unite even in their wars. The bands of the east fight 
the Ojibwas on the Upper Lakes; those of the west make 
incessant war upon the Snake Indians in the Rocky Moun- 
tains. As the whole people is divided into bands, so each 
band is divided into villages. Each village has a chief, 
who is honored and obeyed only so far as his personal 
qualities may command respect and fear. Sometimes he is 
a mere nominal chief; sometimes his authority is little 
short of absolute, and his fame and influence reach beyond 
his own village, so that the whole band to which he be- 
longs is ready to acknowledge him as their head. This 
was, a few years since, the case with the Ogillallah. 
Courage, address, and enterprise may raise any warrior 
to the highest honor, especially if he be the son of a 
former chief, or a member of a numerous family, to sup- 
port him and avenge his quarrels ; but when he has reached 
the dignity of chief, and the old men and warriors, by a 
peculiar ceremony, have formally installed him, let it not be 
imagined that he assumes any of the outward signs of rank 
and honor. He knows too well on how frail a tenure he 



154 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

holds his station. He must conciliate his uncertain sub- 
jects. Many a man in the village lives better, owns more 
squaws and more horses, and goes better clad than he. 
Like the Teutonic chiefs of old, he ingratiates himself 
with his young men by making them presents, thereby 
often impoverishing himself. If he fails to gain their 
favor they will set his authority at naught, and may 
desert him at any moment; for the usages of his people 
have provided no means of enforcing his authority. Very 
seldom does it happen, at least among these western bands, 
that a chief attains to much power, unless he is the head 
of a numerous family. Frequently the village is princi- 
pally made up of his relatives and descendants, and the 
wandering community assumes much of the patriarchal 
character. 

The western Dakota have no fixed habitations. Hunt- 
ing and fighting, they wander incessantly, through summer 
and winter. Some follow the herds of buffalo over the 
waste of prairie; others traverse the Black Hills, throng- 
ing, on horseback and on foot, through the dark gulfs and 
sombre gorges, and emerging at last upon the "Parks," — 
those beautiful but most perilous hunting grounds. The 
buffalo supplies them with the necessaries of life; with 
habitations, food, clothing, beds, and fuel, strings for 
their bows, glue, thread, cordage, trail-ropes for their 
horses, coverings for their saddles, vessels to hold water, 
boats to cross streams, and the means of purchasing all 
that they want from the traders. When the buffalo are 
extinct, they too must dwindle away. 

War is the breath of their nostrils. Against most of the 
neighboring tribes they cherish a rancorous hatred, trans- 
mitted from father to son, and inflamed by constant aggres- 
sion and retaliation. Many times a year, in every village, 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 155 

the Great Spirit is called upon, fasts are made, the war- 
parade is celebrated, and the warriors go out by handfuls 
at a time against the enemy. This fierce spirit awakens 
their most eager aspirations, and calls forth their greatest 
energies. It is chiefly this that saves them from lethargy 
and utter abasement. Without its powerful stimulus they 
would be like the unwarlike tribes beyond the mountains, 
scattered among the caves and rocks like beasts, and liv- 
ing on roots and reptiles. These latter have little of 
humanity except the form ; but the proud and ambitious 
Dakota warrior can sometimes boast heroic virtues. It 
is seldom that distinction and influence are attained among 
them by any other course than that of arms. Their super- 
stition, however, sometimes gives great power to those 
among them who pretend to the character of magicians ; 
and their orators, such as they are, have their share of 
honor. 

But to return. Look into our tent, or enter, if you can 
bear the stifling smoke and the close air. There, wedged 
close together, you will see a circle of stout warriors, pass- 
ing the pipe around, joking, telling stories, and making 
themselves merry after their fashion. We were also infested 
by little copper-colored naked boys and snake-eyed girls. 
They would come up to us muttering certain words, which 
being interpreted conveyed the concise invitation, " Come 
and eat." Then we would rise, cursing the pertinacity of 
Dakota hospitality, which allowed scarcely an hour of 
rest between sun and sun, and to which we were bound 
to do honor, unless we would offend our entertainers. 
This necessity was particularly burdensome to me, as I 
was scarcely able to walk from the effects of illness, and 
was poorly qualified to dispose of twenty meals a day. 
So bounteous an entertainment looks like an outsrushing 



156 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

of good-will; but, doubtless, half at least of our kind hosts, 
had they met us alone and unarmed on the prairie, would 
have robbed us of our horses, and perhaps have bestowed 
an arrow upon us besides. 

One morning we were summoned to the lodge of an old 
man, the Nestor of his tribe. We found him half sitting, 
half reclining, on a pile of buffalo-robes; his long hair, jet- 
black, though he had seen some eighty winters, hung on 
either side of his thin features. His gaunt but symmetri- 
cal frame did not more clearly exhibit the wreck of by- 
gone strength, than did his dark, wasted features, still prom- 
inent and commanding, bear the stamp of mental energies. 
Opposite the patriarch was his nephew, the young aspirant 
Mahto-Tatonka; and besides these, there were one or two 
women m the lodge. 

The old man's story is peculiar, and illustrative of a 
superstition that prevails in full force among many of the 
Indian tribes. He was one of a powerful family, re- 
nowned for warlike exploits. When a very young man 
he submitted to the singular rite to which most of the 
tribe subject themselves before entering upon life. He 
painted his face black; then seeking out a cavern in a 
sequestered part of the Black Hills, he lay for several 
days, fasting, and praying to the spirits. In the dreams 
and visions produced by his weakened and excited state 
he fancied, like all Indians, that he saw supernatural reve- 
lations. Again and again the form of an antelope appeared 
before him. The antelope is the graceful peace-spirit of 
the Ogillallah; but seldom is it that such a gentle visitor 
presents itself during the initiatory fasts of their young 
men. The terrible grizzly bear, the divinity of war, usu- 
ally appears, to fire them with martial ardor and thirst for 
renown. At length the antelope spoke. It told the young 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 1 57 

dreamer that he was not to follow the path of war; that a 
life of peace and tranquillity was marked out for him; that 
thenceforward he was to guide the people oy his counsels 
and protect them from the evils of their own feuds and 
dissensions. Others were to gain renown by fighting the 
enemy; but greatness of a different kind was in store for 
him. 

The visions beheld during the period of this fast usually 
determine the whole course of the dreamer's life. From 
that time, Le Borgne, which was the only name by which 
we knew him, abandoned all thoughts of war, and devoted 
himself to the labors of peace. He told his vision to the 
people. They honored his commission and respected him 
in his novel capacity. 

A far different man was his brother, Mahto-Tatonka, who 
had left his name, his features, and many of his qualities, 
to his son. He was the father of Henry Chatillon's squaw, 
a circumstance which proved of some advantage to us, as 
it secured the friendship of a family perhaps the most 
noted and influential in the whole Ogillallah band. Mahto- 
Tatonka, in his way, was a hero. No chief could vie with 
him in warlike renown, or in power over his people. He 
had a fearless spirit, and an impetuous and inflexible reso- 
lution. His will was law. He was politic and sagacious, 
and with true Indian craft, always befriended the whites, 
knowing that he might thus reap great advantages for 
himself and his adherents. When he had resolved on any 
course of conduct, he would pay to the warriors the com- 
pliment of calling them together to deliberate upon it, and 
when their debates were over, quietly state his own opinion, 
which no one ever disputed. It fared hard with those who 
incurred his displeasure. He would strike them or stab 
them on the spot ; and this act, which if attempted by any 



158 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



other chief would have cost him his life, the awe inspired 
by his name enabled him to repeat again and again with 
impunity. In a community where, from immemorial time, 
no man has acknowledged any law but his own will, Mahto- 
Tatonka raised himself to power little short of despotic. 
His career came at last to an end. He 
had a host of enemies patiently biding 
their time; and our old friend Smoke 
in particular, together with all his kins- 
men, hated him cordially. Smoke sat 
one day in his lodge, in the midst of 
his own village, when Mahto-Tatonka 
entered it alone, and approaching the 
dwelling of his enemy, challenged him 
in a loud voice to come out and 
fight. Smoke would not move. At 
this, Mahto-Tatonka proclaimed him 
a coward and an old woman, and 
striding to the entrance of the lodge, 
stabbed the chief's best horse, 
which was picketed there. 
; "^ Smoke was daunted, and even 

this insult failed to bring him 
Mahto-Tatonka moved haughtily away; all 
made way for him ; but his hour of reckoning 
was near. 
One hot day, five or six years ago, numerous lodges of 
Smoke's kinsmen were gathered about some of the Fur 
Company's men, who were trading in various articles with 
them, whiskey among the rest. Mahto-Tatonka was also 
there with a few of his people. As he lay in his own 
lodge, a fray arose between his adherents and the kins- 
men of his enemy. The war-whoop was raised, bullets 




SCENES AT THE CAMP. T59 

and arrows began to fly, and the camp was in confusion. 
The chief sprang up, and rushing in a fury from the lodge 
shouted to the combatants on both sides to cease. In- 
stantly — for the attack was preconcerted — came the re- 
ports of two or three guns, and the twanging of a dozen 
bows, and the savage hero, mortally wounded, pitched for- 
ward headlong to the ground. Rouleau was present, and 
told me the particulars. The tumult became general, and 
was not quelled until several had fallen on both sides. 
When we were in the country the feud between the two 
families was still rankling. 

Thus died Mahto-Tatonka; but he left behind him a 
goodly army of descendants, to perpetuate his renown and 
avenge his fate. Besides daughters, he had thirty sons, 
a number which need not stagger the credulity of those 
acquainted with Indian usages and practices. We saw 
many of them, all marked by the same dark complexion, 
and the same peculiar cast of features. Of these, our 
visitor, young Mahto-Tatonka, was the eldest, and some 
reported him as likely to succeed to his father's honors. 
Though he appeared not more than twenty-one years old, 
he had oftener struck the enemy, and stolen more horses 
and more squaws, than any other young man in the village. 
Horse-stealing is well known as an avenue to distinction 
on the prairies, and the other kind of depredation is 
esteemed equally meritorious. Not that the act can con- 
fer fame from its own intrinsic merits. Any one can 
steal a squaw, and if he chooses afterwards to make an 
adequate present to her rightful proprietor, the easy hus- 
band for the most part rests content, his vengeance falls 
asleep, and all danger from that quarter is averted. Yet 
this is regarded as a pitiful and mean-spirited transac- 
tion. The danger is averted, but the glory of the achieve- 



l60 THE OREGON TRAIL. 



ment also is lost. Mahto-Tatonka proceeded after a more 
dashing fashion. Out of several dozen squaws whom he 
had stolen he could boast that he had never paid for one. 
but snapping his fingers in the face of the injured hus- 
band, had defied the extremity of his indignation, and no 
one yet had dared to lay the finger of violence upon him. 
He was following close in the footsteps of his father. 
The young men and the young squaws, each in their way, 
admired him. The former would always follow him to 
war, and he was esteemed to have an unrivalled charm in 
the eyes of the latter. Perhaps his impunity may excite 
some wonder. An arrow shot from a ravine, or a stab 
given in the dark require no great valor, and are espe- 
cially suited to the Indian genius; but Mahto-Tatonka 
had a strong protection. It was not alone his courage 
and audacious will that enabled him to career so dash- 
ingly among his compeers. His enemies did not forget 
that he was one of thirty warlike brethren, all growing 
up to manhood. Should they wreak their anger upon him 
many keen eyes would be ever upon them and many fierce 
hearts thirst for their blood. The avenger would dog 
their footsteps everywhere. To kill Mahto-Tatonka would 
be an act of suicide. 

Though he found such favor in the eyes of the fair, he 
was no dandy. He was indifferent to the gaudy trappings 
and ornaments of his companions, and was content to rest 
his chances of success upon his own warlike merits. He 
never arrayed himself in gaudy blanket and glittering 
necklaces, but left his statue-like form, limbed like an 
Apollo of bronze, to win its way to favor. His voice 
was singularly deep and strong, and sounded from his 
chest like the deep notes of an organ. Yet after all. he 
was but an Indian. See him as he lies there in the sun 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. l6l 

before our tent, kicking his heels in the air and cracking 
jokes with his brother. Does he look like a hero? See 
him now in the hour of his glory, when at sunset the 
whole village empties itself to behold him ; for to-morrow 
their favorite young partisan goes out against the enemy. 
His head-dress is adorned with a crest of the war-eagle's 
feathers, rising in a waving ridge above his brow, and 
sweeping far behind him. His round white shield hangs 
at his breast, with feathers radiating from the centre like 
a star. His quiver is at his back; his tall lance in his 
hand, the iron point flashing against the declining sun, 
while the long scalplocks of his enemies flutter from the 
shaft. Thus, gorgeous as a champion in panoply, he rides 
round and round within the great circle of lodges, balanc- 
ing with a graceful buoyancy to the free movements of his 
war-horse, while with a sedate brow he sings his song to the 
Great Spirit. Young rival warriors • look askance at him; 
vermilion-cheeked girls gaze in admiration; boys whoop and 
scream in a thrill of delight; and old women yell forth his 
name and proclaim his praises from lodge to lodge. 

Mahto-Tatonka was the best of all our Indian friends. 
Hour after hour, and day after day, when swarms of sav- 
ages of every age, sex, and degree beset our camp, he would 
lie in our tent, his lynx-eye ever open to guard our prop- 
erty from pillage. 

The Whirlwind invited us one day to his lodge. The 
feast was finished and the pipe began to circulate. It 
was a remarkably large and fine one, and I expressed 
admiration of it. 

"If the Meneaska likes the pipe," asked The Whirlwind, 
" why does he not keep it ? " 

Such a pipe among the Ogillallah is valued at the price 
of a horse. The gift seemed worthy of a chieftain and a 



l62 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

warrior; but The Whirlwind's generosity rose to no such 
pitch. He gave me the pipe, confidently expecting that 
I in return would make him a present of equal or superior 
value. This is the implied condition of every gift among 
the Indians, and should it not be complied with, the pres- 
ent is usually reclaimed. So I arranged upon a gaudy 
calico handkerchief an assortment of vermilion, tobacco, 
knives, and gunpowder, and summoning the chief to camp, 
assured him of my friendship, and begged his acceptance 
of a slight token of it. Ejaculating "How! how!" he 
folded up the offerings and withdrew to his lodge. 

Late one afternoon a party of Indians on horseback came 
suddenly in sight from behind some clumps of bu.shes that 
lined the bank of the stream, leading with them a mule, 
on whose back was a wretched negro, sustained in his seat 
by the high pommel and cantle of the Indian saddle. His 
cheeks were shrunken in the hollow of his jaws; his eyes 
were unnaturally dilated, and his lips shrivelled and drawn 
back from his teeth like those of a corpse. When they 
brought him before our tent, and lifted him from the saddle, 
he could not walk or stand, but crawled a short distance, 
and with a look of utter misery sat down on the grass. All 
the children and women came pouring out of the lodges, 
and with screams and cries made a circle about him, while 
he sat supporting himself with his hands, and looking from 
side to side with a vacant stare. The wretch was starv- 
ing to death. For thirty-three days he had wandered alone 
on the prairie, without weapon of any kind; without shoes, 
moccasins, or any other clothing than an old jacket and 
trousers; without intelligence to guide his course, or any 
knowledge of the productions of the prairie. All this 
time he had subsisted on crickets and lizards, wild onions, 
and three eggs which he found in the nest of a prairie- 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 163 

dove. He had not seen a human being. Bewildered in 
the boundless, hopeless desert that stretched around him, 
he had walked on in despair, till he could walk no longer, 
and then crawled on his knees, till the bone was laid bare. 
He chose the night for travelling, lying down by day to 
sleep in the glaring sun, always dreaming as he said, of the 
broth and corncake he used to eat under his old master's 
shed in Missouri. Every man in the camp, both white and 
red, was astonished at his escape not only from starvation, 
but from the grizzly bears, which abound in that neigh- 
borhood, and the wolves which howled around him every 
night. 

Reynal recognized him the moment the Indians brought 
him in. He had run away from his master about a year 
before and joined the party of Richard, who was then leav- 
ing the frontier for the mountains. He had lived with 
Richard until, at the end of May, he with Reynal and 
several other men went out in search of some stray 
horses, when he was separated from the rest in a storm, 
and had never been heard of to this time. Knowing his 
inexperience and helplessness, no one dreamed that he 
could still be living. The Indians had found him lying 
exhausted on the ground. 

As he sat there, with the Indians gazing silently on 
him, his haggard face and glazed eye were disgusting to 
look upon. Deslauriers made him a bowl of gruel, but 
he suffered it to remain untasted before him. At length 
he languidly raised the spoon to his lips; again he did 
so, and again ; and then his appetite seemed suddenly in- 
flamed into madness, for he seized the bowl, swallowed 
all its contents in a few seconds, and eagerly demanded 
meat. This we refused, telling him to wait until morning; 
but he begged so eagerly that we gave him a small piece. 



l64 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

which he devoured, tearing it like a dog. He said he 
must have more. We told him that his life was in dan- 
ger if he ate so immoderately at first. He assented, and 
said he knew he was a fool to do so, but he must have 
meat. This we absolutely refused, to the great indignation 
of the senseless squaws, who, v/hen we were not watching 
him, would slyly bring dried meat 2ind poinines blmicJics, and 
place them on the ground by his side. Still this was not 
enough for him. When it grew dark he contrived to creep 
away between the legs of the horses and crawl over to the 
Indian camp. Here he fed to his heart's content, and was 
brought back again in the morning, when Gingras, the trap- 
per, put him on horseback and carried him to the fort. He 
managed to survive the effects of his greediness. Though 
slightly deranged when we left this part of the country, 
he was otherwise in tolerable health, and expressed his 
firm conviction that nothing could ever kill him. 

When the sun was yet an hour high it was a gay scene 
in the village. The warriors stalked sedately among the 
lodges, or along the margin of the stream, or walked out 
to visit the bands of horses that were feeding over the 
prairie. Half the population deserted the close and heated 
lodges and betook themselves to the water; and here you 
might see boys and girls, and young squaws, splashing, 
swimming, and diving, beneath the afternoon sun, with 
merry screams and laughter. But when the sun was resting 
above the broken peaks, and the purple mountains threw their 
shadows for miles over the prairie ; when our old tree basked 
peacefully in the horizontal rays, and the swelling plains 
and scattered groves were softened into a tranquil beauty, — ■ 
then the scene around our tent was worthy of a Salvator. 
Savage figures, with quivers at their backs, and guns, 
lances, or tomahawks in their hands, sat on horseback, 



SCENES AT THE CAMP 165 

motionless as statues, their arms crossed on their breasts 
and their eyes fixed in a steady, unwavering gaze upon us. 
Others stood erect, wrapped from head to foot in their 
long white robes of buffalo-hide. Others sat together on 
the grass, holding their shaggy horses by a rope, with their 
dark busts exposed to view as they suffered their robes to 
fall from their shoulders. Others again stood carelessly 
among the throng, with nothing to conceal the matchless 
symmetry of their forms. There was one in particular, a 
ferocious fellow, named The Mad Wolf, who, with the bow 
in his hand and the quiver at his back, might have seemed, 
but for his face, the Pythian Apollo himself. Such a figure 
rose before the imagination of West, when on first seeing 
the Belvedere in the Vatican, he exclaimed, " By God, a 
Mohawk ! " 

When the prairie grew dark the horses were driven in 
and secured near the camp, and the crowd began to melt 
away. Fires gleamed around, duskily revealing the rough 
trappers and the graceful Indians. One of the families 
near us was always gathered about a bright fire that 
lighted up the interior of their lodge. Withered, witch- 
like hags flitted around the blaze; and here for hour after 
hour sat a circle of children and young girls, laughing 
and talking, their round, merry faces glowing in the ruddy 
light. We could hear the monotonous notes of the drum 
from the Indian camp, with the chant of the war-song, 
deadened in the distance, and the long chorus of quaver- 
ing yells, where the war-dance was going on in the largest 
lodge. For several nights, too, we heard wild and mourn- 
ful cries, rising and dying away like the melancholy voice 
of a wolf. They came from the sisters and other female 
relatives of Mahto-Tatonka, who were gashing their limbs 
with knives, and bewailing the death of Henry Chatillon's 



l66 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

squaw. The hour would grow late before all went to rest 
in our camp. Then, while the embers of the fires glowed 
dimly, the men lay stretched in their blankets on the ground, 
and nothing could be heard but the restless motions of the 
crowded horses. 

I recall these scenes with a mixed feeling of pleasure 
and pain. At this time I was so reduced by illness that 
I could seldom walk without reeling like a drunken man; 
and when I rose from my seat upon the ground the land- 
scape suddenly grew dim before my eyes, the trees and 
lodges seemed to sway to and fro, and the prairie to rise 
and fall like the swells of the ocean. Such a state of 
things is not enviable anywhere. In a country where a 
man's life may at any moment depend on the strength of 
his arm, or it may be on the activity of his legs, it is 
more particularly inconvenient. Nor is sleeping on damp 
ground, with an occasional drenching from a shower, very 
beneficial in such cases. I sometimes suffered the ex- 
tremity of exhaustion, and was in a tolerably fair way of 
atoning for my love of the prairie, by resting there for 
ever. 

I tried repose and a very sparing diet. For a long time, 
with exemplary patience, I lounged about the camp, or at 
the utmost staggered over to the Indian village, and walked 
faint and dizzy among the lodges. It would not do; and 
I bethought me of starvation. During five days I sustained 
life on one small biscuit a day At the end of that time 
I was weaker than before, but the disorder seemed shaken 
in its stronghold, and very gradually I began to resume a 
less rigid diet. 

I used to lie languid and dreamy before our tent, musing 
on the past and the future, and when most overcome with 
lassitude, my eyes turned always towards the distant Black 



SCENES AT THE CAMP. 



167 



Hills. There is a spirit of energy in mountains, and they 
impart it to all who approach them. At that time I did 
not know how many dark superstitions and gloomy legends 
are associated with the Black Hills in the minds of the 
Indians, but I felt an eager desire to penetrate their hid- 
den recesses, and explore the chasms and precipices, black 
torrents, and silent forests that I fancied were concealed 
there. 




CHAPTER XII. 

ILL-LUCK. 

A CANADIAN came from Fort Laramie, and brought a 
curious piece of intelligence. A trapper, fresh from 
the mountains, had become enamoured of a Missouri damsel 
belonging to a family who with other emigrants had been 
for some days encamped in the neighborhood of the fort. 
If bravery be the most potent charm to wm the favor of 
the fair, then no wooer could be more irresistible than a 
Rocky Mountain trapper. In the present instance, the 
suit was not urged in vain. The lovers concerted a 
scheme, which they proceeded to carry into effect with 
all possible despatch. The emigrant party left the fort, 
and on the next night but one encamped as usual, and 
placed a guard. A little after midnight the enamoured 
trapper drew near, mounted on a strong horse, and lead- 
ing another by the bridle. Fastening both animals to a 
tree, he stealthily moved towards the wagons, as if he 
were approaching a band of buffalo. Eluding the vigi- 
lance of the guard, who were probably half asleep, he met 
his mistress by appointment at the outskirts of the camp, 
mounted her on his spare horse, and made off with her 
through the darkness. The sequel of the adventure did 
not reach our ears, and we never learned how the impru- 
dent fair one liked an Indian lodge for a dwelling, and a 
reckless trapper for a bridegroom. 



ILL-LUCK. 169 

At length The Whirlwind and his warriors determined 
to move. They had resolved, after all their preparations, 
not to go to the rendezvous at La Bonte's camp, but to 
pass through the Black Hills and spend a few weeks in 
hunting the buffalo on the other side, until they had killed 
enough to furnish them with a stock of provisions and 
with hides to make their lodges for the next season. This 
done, they were to send out a small independent war- 
party against the enemy. Their final determination placed 
us in some embarrassment. Should we go to La Bonte's 
camp, it was not impossible that the other villages would 
prove as vacillating as The Whirlwind's, and that no 
assembly whatever would take place. Our old companion 
Reynal had conceived a liking for us, or rather for our 
biscuit and coffee, and for the occasional small presents 
which we made him. He was very anxious that we should 
go with the village, which he himself intended to follow. 
He was certain that no Indians would meet at the rendez- 
vous, and said, moreover, that it would be easy to convey 
our cart and baggage through the Black Hills. He knew, 
however, nothing of the matter. Neither he nor any white 
man with us had ever seen the difficult and obscure defiles 
through which the Indians intended to make their way. I 
passed them afterwards, and had much ado to force my 
distressed horse along the narrow ravines, and through 
chasms where daylight could scarcely penetrate. Our cart 
might as easily have been driven over the summit of Pike's 
Peak. But of this we were ignorant; and in view of the 
difficulties and uncertainties of an attempt to visit the 
rendezvous, we recalled the old proverb about "a bird 
in the hand," and decided to follow the village. 

Both camps, the Indians' and our own, broke up on the 
morning of the first of July. I was so weak that the aid 



170 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 




of a spoonful of whiskey, swallowed at short intervals, 
alone enabled me to sit my horse through the short 
journey of that day. For half a mile before us and half 
a mile behind, the prairie was covered far and wide with 
the moving throng of savages. The barren, broken plain 



ILL-LUCK. 171 

stretched away to the right and left, and far in front rose 
the precipitous ridge of the Black Hills. We pushed for- 
ward to the head of the scattered column, passing burdened 
ti'aineanx, heavily laden pack-horses, gaunt old women on 
foot, gay young squaws on horseback, restless children 
running among the crowd, old men striding along in their 
white buffalo-robes, and groups of young warriors mounted 
on their best horses. Henry Chatillon, looking backward 
over the distant prairie, exclaimed suddenly that a horse- 
man was coming; and in truth we could just discern 
a small black speck slowly moving over the face of a dis- 
tant swell, like a fly creeping on a wall. It rapidly grew 
larger as it approached. 

"White man, I b'lieve," said Henry; "look how he 
ride. Indian never ride that way. Yes ; he got rifle on 
the saddle before him." 

The horseman disappeared in a hollow of the prairie, 
but we soon saw him again, and as he came riding at a 
gallop towards us through the crowd of Indians, his long 
hair streaming in the wind behind him, we recognized 
the ruddy face and old buckskin frock of Gingras the 
trapper. He was just arrived from Fort Laramie, and said 
he had a message for us. A trader named Bisonette, one 
of Henry's friends, had lately come from the settlements, 
and intended to go with a party of men to La Bonte's 
camp, where, as Gingras assured us, ten or twelve villages 
of Indians would certainly assemble. Bisonette desired 
that we would cross over and meet him there, and prom- 
ised that his men should protect our horses and baggage 
while we went among the Indians. Shaw and I stopped our 
horses, held a council, and in an evil hour resolved to go. 

For the rest of that day our course and that of the 
Indians was the same. In less than an hour we came to 



1/2 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

where the high barren prairie terminated, sinking down 
abruptly in steep descent; and standing on the verge we 
saw below us a great meadow. Laramie Creek bounded 
it on the left sweeping along in the shadow of the heights, 
and passing with its shallow and rapid current just be- 
neath us. We sat on horseback, waiting and looking on, 
while the whole savage array went pouring by, hurrying 
down the declivity and spreading over the meadow below. 
In a few moments the plain was swarming with the mov- 
ing multitude, some just visible, like specks in the 
distance, others still hastening by and fording the stream 
in bustle and confusion. On the edge of the heights sat 
a group of the elder warriors, gravely smoking and looking 
with unmoved faces on the wild and striking spectacle. 

Up went the lodges in a circle on the margin of the 
stream. For the sake of quiet we pitched our tent among 
some trees half a mile distant. In the afternoon we were 
in the village. The day was a glorious one, and the whole 
camp seemed lively and animated in sympathy. Groups of 
children and young girls were laughing gayly outside the 
lodges. The shields, the lances, and the bows were re- 
moved from the tall tripods on which they usually hung, 
before the dwellings of their owners. The warriors were 
mounting their horses, and one by one riding away over 
the prairie toward the neighboring hills. 

Shaw and I sat on the grass near the lodge of Reynal. 
An old woman, with true Indian hospitality, brought a bowl 
of boiled venison and placed it before us. We amused our- 
selves with watching a few young squaws who were play- 
ing together and chasing each other in and out of one of 
the lodges. Suddenly the wild yell of the war-whoop came 
pealing from the hills. A crowd of horsemen appeared, 
rushing down their sides, and riding at full speed towards 



ILL-LUCK. 



173 




the village, each warrior's long hair flying behind hnii m 
the wind like a ship's streamer. As they approached, the 
confused throng assumed a regular order, and entering two 
by two. they circled round the area at full gallop, each 



174 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

warrior singing his war-song as he rode. Some of their 
dresses were superb. They wore crests of feathers, and 
close tunics of antelope skins, fringed with the scalp- 
locks of their enemies; many of their shields, too, flut- 
tered with the war-eagle's feathers. All had bows and 
arrows at their backs ; some carried long lances, and a few 
were armed with guns. The White Shield, their partisan, 
rode in gorgeous attire at their head, mounted on a black- 
and-white horse. Mahto-Tatonka and his brothers took no 
part in this parade, for they were in mourning for their 
sister, and were all sitting in their lodges, their bodies 
bedaubed from head to foot with white clay, and a lock 
of hair cut from the forehead of each. 

The warriors rode three times round the village; and as 
each noted champion passed, the old women would scream 
out his name to honor his bravery and excite the emula- 
tion of the younger warriors. Little urchins, not two 
years old, followed the warlike pageant with glittering 
eyes, and gazed with eager admiration at the heroes of 
their tribe. 

The procession rode out of the village as it had entered 
it, and in half an hour all the warriors had returned again, 
dropping quietly in, singly or in parties of two or three. 

The parade over, we were entertained with an episode of 
Indian domestic life. A vicious-looking squaw, beside her- 
self with rage, was berating her spouse, who, with a look 
of total unconcern, sat cross-legged in the middle of his 
lodge, smoking his pipe in silence. At length, maddened 
by his coolness, she made a rush at the lodge, seized the 
poles which supported it, and tugged at them, one after 
the other, till she brought down the whole structure, poles, 
hides, and all, clattering on his head, burying him in the 
wreck of his habitation. He pushed aside the hides with 



ILL-LUCK. 



175 



his hand, and presently his head emerged, like a turtle's 
from its shell. Still he sat smoking sedately as before, 
a wicked glitter in his eyes alone betraying the pent-up 
storm within. The squaw, scolding all the while, pro- 
ceeded to saddle her horse, bestride him, and canter out 
of the camp, intending, as it seemed, to return to her 
father's lodge, wherever that 
might be. The warrior, who 
had not deigned even to look 
at her, now coolly rose, dis- 
engaged himself from the 
ruins, tied a cord of hair by 
way of bridle round the jaw 
of his buffalo-horse, broke a 
stout cudgel, about four feet 
long from the but-end of a 
lodge pole, mounted, and gal- 
loped majestically over the 
prairie to discipline his of- 
fending helpmeet. 

As the sun rose next morning we looked across the 
meadow, and could see the lodges levelled and the Indians 
gathering together in preparation to leave the camp. Their 
course lay to the westward. We turned towards the north 
with our three men, the four trappers following us, with 
the Indian family of Morin. We travelled until night, and 
encamped among some trees by the side of a little brook, 
where during the whole of the next day we lay waiting for 
Bisonette; but no Bisonette appeared. Here two of our 
trapper friends left us, and set out for the Rocky Moun- 
tains. On the second morning, despairing of Bisonette's 
arrival, we resumed our journey, traversing a forlorn and 
dreary monotony of sun-scorched plains, where no living 




/ 



1/6 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



thing appeared save here and there an antelope flying before 
us like the wind. When noon came we saw an unwonted 
and welcome sight, — a. fine growth of trees, marking the 
course of a little stream called Horseshoe Creek. They stood 
wide asunder, spreading a thick canopy of leaves above a 
surface of rich, tall grass. The stream ran swiftly, as clear 
as crystal, through the bosom of the wood, sparkling over 
its bed of white sand, and darkening again as it entered a 

deep cavern of foliage. I was 
thoroughly exhausted, and 
flung myself on the ground, 
scarcely able to move. 

In the morning, as glori- 
ous a sun rose upon us as 
ever animated that wilder- 
ness. We advanced, and 
soon were surrounded by 
tall bare hills, overspread 
from top to bottom with 
prickly pears and other cac- 
ti, that seemed like clinging 
reptiles. A plain, flat and 
hard, with scarcely the ves- 
tige of grass, lay before us, and a line of tall, misshapen 
trees bounded the onward view. There was no sight 
or sound of man or beast, or any living thing, although 
behind those trees was the long-looked-for place of 
rendezvous, where we hoped to have found the Indians 
congregated by thousands. We looked and listened anx- 
iously. We pushed forward with our best speed, and 
forced our horses through the trees. There were copses 
of some extent beyond, with a scanty stream creeping 
among them; and as we pressed through the yielding 




/ 



ILL-LUCK. 177 

branches, deer sprang up to the right and left. At length 
we caught a glimpse of the prairie beyond, emerged upon 
it. and saw, not a plain covered with encampments and 
swarming with life, but a vast unbroken desert stretching 
away before us league upon league, without bush or tree, 
or any living thing. We drew rein and gave to the 
winds our sentiments concerning the whole aboriginal race 
of America. Our journey was worse than vain. For my- 
self, I was vexed beyond measure; as I well knew that a 
slight aggravation of my disorder would render this false 
step irrevocable, and make it impossible to accomplish 
effectually the object which had led me an arduous jour- 
ney of between three and four thousand miles. 

And where were the Indians .'' They were mustered in 
great numbers at a spot about twenty miles distant, where 
at that very moment they were dancing their war dances. 
The scarcity of buffalo in the vicinity of La Bonte's camp, 
which would render their supply of provisions scanty and 
precarious, had probably prevented them from assembling 
there; but of all this we knew nothing until some weeks 
after. 

Shaw lashed his horse and galloped forward. I, though 
much more vexed than he, was not strong enough to adopt 
this convenient vent to my feelings ; so I followed at a quiet 
pace. We rode up to a solitary old tree, which seemed the 
only place fit for encampment. Half its branches were dead, 
and the rest were so scantily furnished with leaves that they 
cast but a meagre and wretched shade. We threw down our 
saddles in the strip of shadow cast by the old twisted trunk, 
and sat down upon them. In silent indignation we re- 
mained smoking for an hour or more, shifting our saddles 
with the shifting shadow, for the sun was intolerably hot. 



12 



CHAPTER XIII. 



HUNTING INDIANS. 




T last we had reached La Bonte's 
camp, towards which our eyes had 
turned so long. Of all weary hours, 
those that passed between noon and 
sunset of that day may bear away 
the palm of exquisite discom- 
fort. I lay under the tree 
reflecting on what course 
to pursue, watching the 
shadows which seemed never to 
move, and the sun which seemed 
fixed in the sky, and hoping 
every moment to see the men 
and horses of Bisonette emerging from the woods. Shaw 
and Henry had ridden out on a scouting expedition, and 
did not return till the sun was setting. There was nothing 
very cheering in their faces or in the news they brought. 
"We have been ten miles from here," said Shaw. "We 
climbed the highest butte we could find, and could not see 
a buffalo or an Indian; nothing but prairie for twenty miles 
around us." Henry's horse was disabled by clambering 
up and down the sides of ravines, and Shaw's was greatly 
fatigued. 

After supper that evening, as we sat round the fire, I 
proposed to Shaw to wait one day longer, in hopes of 



HUNTING INDIANS. 179 

Bisonette's arrival, and if he should not come, to send 
Deslauriers with the cart and baggage back to Fort Lar- 
amie, while we ourselves followed The Whirlwind's village, 
and attempted to overtake it as it passed the mountains. 
Shaw, not having the same motive for hunting Indians that 
I had, was averse to the plan ; I therefore resolved to go 
alone. This design I adopted very unwillingly, for I knew 
that in the present state of my health the attempt would 
be painful and hazardous. I hoped that Bisonette would 
appear in the course of the following day, and bring us some 
information by which to direct our course, thus enabling me 
to accomplish my purpose by means less objectionable. 

The rifle of Henry Chatillon was necessary for the sub- 
sistence of the party in my absence; so I called Raymond, 
and ordered him to prepare to set out with me. Raymond 
rolled his eyes vacantly about, but at length, having suc- 
ceeded in grappling with the idea, he withdrew to his bed 
under the cart. He was a heavy-moulded fellow, with a 
broad face expressing impenetrable stupidity and entire 
self-confidence. As for his good qualities, he had a sort 
of stubborn fidelity, an insensibility to danger, and a kind 
of instinct or sagacity, which sometimes led him right 
where better heads than his were at a loss. Besides this, he 
knew very well how to handle a rifle and picket a horse. 

Through the following day the sun glared down upon us 
with a pitiless, penetrating heat. The distant blue prairie 
seemed quivering under it. The lodge of our Indian asso- 
ciates parched in the burning rays, and our rifles as they 
leaned against the tree were too hot for the touch. There 
was a dead silence through our camp, broken only by the 
hum of gnats and mosquitoes. The men, resting their 
foreheads on their arms, were sleeping under the cart. 
The Indians kept close within their lodge, except the 



l8o THE OREGON TRAIL. 

newly married pair, who were seated together under an 
awning of buffalo-robes, and the old conjurer, who, with 
his hard, emaciated face and gaunt ribs, was perched 
aloft like a turkey-buzzard, among the dead branches of 
an old tree, constantly on the lookout for enemies. We 
dined, and then Shaw saddled his horse. 

"I will ride back," said he, "to Horseshoe Creek, and 
see if Bisonette is there." 

"I would go with you," I answered, "but I must reserve 
all the strength I have." 

The afternoon dragged away at last. I occupied myself 
in cleaning my rifle and pistols, and making other prepara- 
tions for the journey. It was late before I wrapped myself 
in my blanket, and lay down for the night, with my head 
on my saddle. Shaw had not returned, but this gave us 
no uneasiness, for we supposed that he had fallen in with 
Bisonette and was spending the night with him. For a 
day or two past I had gained in strength and health, 
but about midnight an attack of pain awoke me, and for 
some hours I could not sleep. The moon was quivering 
on the broad breast of the Platte; nothing could be heard 
except those low, inexplicable sounds, like whisperings and 
footsteps, which no one who has spent the night alone 
amid deserts and forests will be at a loss to understand. 
As I was falling asleep a familiar voice, shouting from the 
distance, awoke me again. A rapid step approached the 
camp, and Shaw, on foot, with his gun in his hand, hastily 
entered. 

"Where's your horse?" said I, raising myself on my 
elbow. 

" Lost ! " said Shaw. " Where 's Deslauriers ? " 

"There," I replied, pointing to a confused mass of 
blankets and buffalo-robes. 



HUNTING INDIANS. l8l 

Shaw touched them with the butt of his gun, and up 
sprang our faithful Canadian. 

"Come, Deslauriers; stir up the fire and get me some- 
thing to eat." 

"Where 's Bisonette? " asked I. 

"The Lord knows; there's nobody at Horseshoe Creek." 

Shaw had gone back to the spot where we had encamped 
two days before, and finding nothing there but the ashes of 
our fires, he had tied his horse to the tree while he bathed 
in the stream. Something startled his horse, which broke 
loose, and for two hours Shaw tried in vain to catch him. 
Sunset approached, and it was twelve miles to camp. So 
he abandoned the attempt, and set out on foot to join us. 
The greater part of his solitary and perilous walk was in 
darkness. His moccasins were worn to tatters, and his feet 
severely lacerated. He sat down to eat, -however, the usual 
equanimity of his temper not at all disturbed by his mis- 
fortune; and my last recollection before falling asleep was 
of Shaw, seated cross-legged before the fire, smoking his 
pipe. 

When I awoke again there was a fresh, damp smell in 
the air, a gray twilight involved the prairie, and above its 
eastern verge was a streak of cold, red sky. I called to the 
men, and in a moment a fire was blazing brightly in the dim 
morning light, and breakfast was getting ready. We sat 
down together on the grass, to the last civilized meal which 
Raymond and I were destined to enjoy for some time. 

"Now bring in the horses." 

My little mare Pauline was soon standing by the fire. She 
was a fleet, hardy, and gentle animal, christened after Paul 
Dorion, from whom I had procured her in exchange for 
Pontiac. She did not look as if equipped for a morning 
pleasure-ride. In front of the black, high-bowed mountain- 



l82 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

saddle were fastened holsters, with heavy pietols. A pair 
of saddle-bags, a blanket tightly rolled, a small parcel of 
Indian presents tied up in buffalo-skin, a leather bag of 
flour, and a smaller one of tea, were all secured behind, 
and a long trail-rope .was wound round her neck. Ra)/'- 
mond had a strong black mule, equipped in a similar 
manner. We crammed our powder-horns to the throat, 
and mounted. 

" I will meet you at Fort Laramie on the first of August," 
said I to Shaw. 

"That is," he replied, "if we don't meet before that. I 
think I shall follow you in a day or two." 

This in fact he attempted, and would have succeeded if 
he had not encountered obstacles against which his reso- 
lute spirit was of no avail. Two days after I left him he 
sent Deslauriers to the fort with the cart and baggage, and 
set out for the mountains with Henry Chatillon; but a vio- 
lent thunder-storm had deluged the prairie, and obliterated 
not only our trail but that of the Indians themselves. They 
encamped at the base of the mountains, at a loss in what 
direction to go. In the morning Shaw found himself 
poisoned by the plant popularly known in New England as 
"poison ivy," in such a manner that it was impossible for 
him to travel. So they turned back reluctantly toward 
Fort Laramie. Shaw lay seriously ill for a week, and re- 
mained at the fort till I rejoined him some time after. 

To return to my own story. Raymond and I shook hands 
with our friends, rode out upon the prairie, and clamber- 
ing the sandy hollows channelled in the sides of the hills, 
gained the high plains above. If a curse had been pro- 
nounced upon the land, it could not have worn an aspect 
more forlorn. There were abrupt broken hills, deep hol- 
lows, and wide plains ; but all alike glared with an insup- 



HUNTING INDIANS. 183 

portable whiteness under the burning sun. The country, 
as if parched by the heat, was cracked into innumerable 
fissures and ravines, that not a little impeded our pro- 
gress. Their steep sides were white and- raw, and along 
the bottom we several times discovered the broad tracks 
of the grizzly bear, nowhere more abundant than in this 
region. The ridges of the hills were hard as rock, and 
strewn with pebbles of flint and coarse red jasper ; look- 
ing from them, there was nothing to relieve the desert 
uniformity, save here and there a pine-tree clinging at 
the edge of a ravine, and stretching its rough, shaggy 
arms into the scorching air. Its resinous odors recalled 
the pine-clad mountains of New England, and, goaded as 
I was with a morbid thirst, I thought with a longing de- 
sire on the crystal treasure poured in such wasteful pro- 
fusion from our thousand hills. I heard, in fancy, the 
plunging and gurgling of waters among the shaded rocks, 
and saw them gleaming dark and still far down amid the 
crevices, the cold drops trickling from the long green 
mosses. 

When noon came we found a little stream, with a few 
trees and bushes ; and here we rested for an hour. Then 
we travelled on, guided by the sun, until, just before sun- 
set, we reached another stream called Bitter Cottonwood 
Creek. A thick growth of bushes and old, storm-beaten 
trees grew at intervals along its bank. Near the foot of 
one of the trees we fiung down our saddles, and hobbling 
our horses, turned them loose to feed. The little stream 
was clear and swift and ran musically over its white sands. 
Small water-birds were splashing in the shallows and fill- 
ing the air with cries and flutterings. The sun was just 
sinking among gold and crimson clouds behind Mount 
Laramie. I lay upon a log by the margin of the water, 



l84 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

and watched the restless motions of the little fish in a 
deep still nook below. Strange to say, I seemed to have 
gained strength since the morning, and almost felt a sense 
of returning health. 

We built our fire. Night came, and the wolves began 
to howl. One deep voice began, answered in awful re- 
sponses from hills, plains, and woods. Such sounds do 
not disturb one's sleep upon the prairie. We picketed 
the mare and the mule and did not awake until daylight. 
Then we turned them loose, still hobbled, to feed for an 
hour before starting. We were getting ready our break- 
fast when Raymond saw an antelope half a mile distant 
and said he would go and shoot it. 

"Your business," said I, "is to look after the animals. 
I am too weak to do much if anything happens to them, 
and you must keep within sight of the camp." 

Raymond promised, and set out with his rifle in his 
hand. The mare and the mule had crossed the stream, 
and were feeding among the long grass on the other side, 
much tormented by the attacks of large, green-headed flies. 
As I watched them I saw them go down into a hollow, 
and as several minutes elapsed without their reappearing, 
I waded through the stream to look after them. To my 
vexation and alarm I discovered them at a great distance, 
galloping away at full speed, Pauline in advance, with 
her hobbles broken, and the mule, still fettered, following 
with awkward leaps. I fired my rifle and shouted to recall 
Raymond. In a moment he came running through the 
stream, with a red handkerchief bound round his head. I 
pointed to the fugitives, and ordered him to pursue them. 
Muttering a "Sacre," between his teeth, he set out at full 
speed, still swinging his rifle in his hand. I walked up 
to the top of a hill, and, looking away over the prairie, 



HUNTING INDIANS. 185 

could distinguish the runaways, still at full gallop. Re- 
turning to the fire, I sat down at the foot of a tree. 
Wearily and anxiously hour after hour passed away. The 
loose bark dangling from the trunk behind me flapped to 
and fro in the wind, and the mosquitoes kept up their 
drowsy hum ; but other than this there was no sight nor 
sound of life throughout the burning landscape. The sun 
rose higher and higher, until I knew that it must be noon. 
It seemed scarcely possible that the animals could be re- 
covered. If they were not, my situation was one of seri- 
ous difficulty. Shaw, when I left him, had decided to 
move that morning, but whither he had not determined. 
To look for him would be a vain attempt. Fort Laramie 
was forty miles distant, and I could not walk a mile with- 
out great effort. Not then having learned the philosophy 
of yielding to disproportionate obstacles, I resolved, come 
what would, to continue the pursuit of the Indians. Only 
one plan occurred to me ; this was, to send Raymond to 
the fort with an order for more horses, while I remained 
on the spot, awaiting his return, which might take place 
within three days. But to remain stationary and alone 
for three days, in a country full of dangerous Indians, 
was not the most flattering of prospects ; and, protracted 
as my Indian hunt must be by such delay, it was not easy 
to foretell its result. Revolving these matters, I grew 
hungry ; and as our stock of provisions, except four 01 
five pounds of flour, was by this time exhausted, I left 
the camp to see what game I could find. Nothing could 
be seen except four or five large curlews wheeling over 
my head, and now and then alighting upon the prairie. I 
shot two of them, and was about returning, when a start- 
ling sight caught my eye. A small dark object, like a 
human head, suddenly appeared, and vanished among the 



l86 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

thick bushes along the stream below. In that country 
every stranger is a suspected enemy; and I threw forward 
the muzzle of my rifle. In a moment the bushes were 
violently shaken ; two heads, but not human heads, pro- 
truded; and to my great joy I recognized the downcast, 
disconsolate countenance of the black mule, and the yel- 
low visage of Pauline. Raymond came upon the mule, 
pale and haggard, complaining of a fiery pain in his 
chest. I took charge of the animals while he kneeled 
down by the side of the stream to drink. He had kept 
the runaways in sight as far as the Side Fork of Laramie 
Creek, a distance of more than ten miles; and here with 
great difficulty he had succeeded in catching them. I 
saw that he was unarmed, and asked him what he had 
done with his rifle. It had encumbered him in his pursuit, 
and he had dropped it on the prairie, thinking that he 
could find it on his return ; but in this he had failed. 
The loss might prove a very serious one. I was too 
much rejoiced, however, at the recovery of the animals, 
and at the fidelity of Raymond, who might easily have 
deserted with them, to think much about it ; and having 
made some tea for him in a tin vessel which we had 
brought with us, I told him that I would give him two 
hours for resting before we set out again. He had eaten 
nothing that day; but having no appetite, he lay down 
immediately to sleep. I picketed the animals among the 
best grass that I could find, and made fires of green wood 
to protect them from the flies; then sitting down again 
by the tree, I watched the slow movements of the sun, 
grudging every moment that passed. 

The time I had mentioned expired, and I awoke Ray- 
mond. We saddled and set out again, but first we went 
in search of the lost rifle, and in the course of an hour 



HUNTING INDIANS. 



187 




/' r^n>^-' 



l88 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

were fortunate enough to find it. Then we turned west- 
ward, and moved over the hills and hollows at a slow pace 
towards Mount Laramie. The heat no longer tormented 
us, for a cloud was before the sun. The air grew fresh 
and cool, the distant mountains frowned more gloomily, 
there was a low muttering of thunder, and dense, black 
masses of cloud rose heavily behind the broken peaks. 
At first they were fringed with silver by the afternoon 
sun ; but soon thick blackness overspread the sky, and 
the desert around us was wrapped in gloom. There was 
an awful sublimity in the hoarse murmuring of the thun- 
der, and the sombre shadows that involved the mountains 
and the plain. The storm broke with a zigzag blinding 
flash, a terrific crash of thunder, and a hurricane that 
howled over the prairie, dashing floods of water against 
us. Raymond looked about him and cursed the merciless 
elements. There seemed no shelter near, but we dis- 
cerned at length a deep ravine gashed in the level prairie, 
and saw half-way down its side an old pine-tree, whose 
rough horizontal boughs formed a sort of pent-house against 
the tempest. We found a practicable passage, led our ani- 
mals down, and fastened them to large loose stones at the 
bottom; then climbing up, we drew our blankets over our 
heads, and crouched close beneath the old tree. Perhaps 
I was no competent judge of time, but it seemed to me 
that we were sitting there a full hour, while around us 
poured a deluge of rain, through which the rocks on the 
opposite side of the gulf were barely visible. The first 
burst of the tempest soon subsided, but the rain poured in 
steady torrents. At length Raymond grew impatient, and 
scrambling out of the ravine, gained the level prairie above. 
"What does the weather look like.'" asked I from my 
seat under the tree. 



HUNTING INDIANS. 189 



"It looks bad," he answered, — "dark all round;" and 
again he descended and sat down by my side. Some ten 
minutes elapsed. 

"Go up again," said I, "and take another look;" and he 
clambered up the precipice. " Well, how is it ? " 

"Just the same, only I see one little bright spot over the 
top of the mountain." 

The rain by this time had begun to abate; and going 
down to the bottom of the ravine we loosened the ani- 
mals, who were standing up to their knees in water. 
Leading them up the rocky throat of the ravine, we 
reached the plain above. All around us was obscurity ; 
but the bright spot above the mountains grew wider and 
ruddier, until at length the clouds drew apart, and a flood 
of sunbeams poured down, streaming along the precipices, 
and involving them in a thin blue haze, as soft as that 
which wraps the Apennines on an evening in spring. 
Rapidly the clouds were broken and scattered, like routed 
legions of evil spirits. The plain lay basking in sun- 
beams around us ; a rainbow arched the desert from north 
to south, and far in front a line of woods seemed inviting 
us to refreshment and repose. When we reached them, 
they were glistening with prismatic dew-drops, and en- 
livened by the songs and flutterings of birds. Strange 
winged insects, benumbed by the rain, were clinging to 
the leaves and the bark of the trees. 

Raymond kindled a fire with great difficulty. The ani- 
mals turned eagerly to feed on the soft rich grass, while 
I, wrapping myself in my blanket, lay down and gazed on 
the evening landscape. The mountains, whose stern feat- 
ures had frowned upon us so gloomily, seemed lighted up 
with a benignant smile, and the green, waving undulations 
of the plain were gladdened with warm sunshine. Wet, 



I90 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ill, and wearied as I was, my heart grew lighter at the 
view, and I drew from it an augury of good. 

When morning came Raymond awoke coughing vio- 
lently, though I had apparently received no injury. We 
mounted, crossed the little stream, pushed through the 
trees, and began our journey over the plain beyond. And 
now, as we rode slowly along, we looked anxiously on 
every hand for traces of the Indians, not doubting that 
the village had passed somewhere in that vicinity; but 
the scanty, shrivelled grass was not more than three or 
four inches high, and the ground was so hard that a 
host might have marched over it and left scarcely a trace 
of its passage. 

Up hill and down hill, and clambering through ravines, 
w^e continued our journey. As we were passing the foot 
of a hill I saw Raymond, who was some rods in advance, 
suddenly jerk the reins of his mule, slide from his seat, 
and run in a crouching posture up a hollow; then in 
an instant I heard the sharp crack of his rifle. A wounded 
antelope came running on three legs over the hill. I 
lashed Pauline and made after him. My fleet little mare 
soon brought me by his side, and, after leaping and bound- 
ding for a few moments in vain, he stood still, as if de- 
spairing of escape. His glistening eyes turned up towards 
my face with so piteous a look that it was with feelings 
of infinite compunction that I shot him through the head 
with a pistol. Raymond skinned and cut him up, and 
we hung the fore-quarters to our saddles, much rejoiced that 
our exhausted stock of provisions was renewed in such good 
time. 

Gaining the top of a hill we could see along the cloudy 
verge of the prairie before us the lines of trees and shadowy 
groves, that marked the course of Laramie Creek. Before 



HUNTING INDIANS. 191 

noon we reached its banks, and began anxiously to search 
them for footprints of the Indians. We followed the stream 
for several miles, now on the shore and now wading in the 
water, scrutinizing every sand-bar and every muddy bank. 
So long was the search that we began to fear that we had 
left the trail undiscovered behind us. At length I heard 
Raymond shouting, and saw him jump from his mule to 
examine some object under the bank. I rode up to his 
side. It was the impression of an Indian moccasin. En- 
couraged by this, we continued our search, till at last 
some appearances on a soft surface of earth not far from 
the shore attracted my eye; and going to examine them, 
I found half a dozen tracks, some made by men and 
some by children. Just then Raymond observed across 
the stream the mouth of a brook entering it from the 
south. He forded the water, rode in at the opening, and 
in a moment I heard him shouting again; so I passed over 
and joined him. The brook had a broad sandy bed, along 
which the water trickled in a scanty stream ; and on either 
bank the bushes were so close that the view was com- 
pletely intercepted. I found Raymond stooping over the 
footprints of three or four horses. Proceeding, we found 
those of a man, then those of a child, then those of more 
horses; till at last the bushes on each bank were beaten 
down and broken, and the sand ploughed up with a multi- 
tude of footsteps, and scored across with the furrows made 
by the lodge-poles that had been dragged through. It was 
now certain that we had found the trail. I pushed through 
the bushes, and at a little distance on the prairie beyond 
found the ashes of a hundred and fifty lodge-fires, with 
bones and pieces of buffalo-robes scattered about, and the 
pickets to which horses had been tied, still standing 
in the ground. Elated by our success, we selected a con- 



192 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

venient tree, and, turning the animals loose, prepared to 
make a meal from the haunch of the antelope. 

Hardship and exposure had thriven with me wonder- 
fully. I had gained both health and strength since leav- 
ing La Bonte's camp. Raymond and I dined together 
in high spirits; for we rashly presumed that having found 
one end of the trail we should have little difficulty in 
reaching the other. But when the animals were led in 
we found that our ill-luck had not ceased to follow us. 
As I was saddling Pauline, I saw that her eye was dull 
as lead, and the hue of her yellow coat visibly darkened. 
I placed my foot in the stirrup to mount, when she stag- 
gered and fell flat on her side. Gaining her feet with an 
effort, she stood by the fire with a drooping head. Whether 
she had been bitten by a snake, or poisoned by some nox- 
ious plant, or attacked by a sudden disorder, it was hard 
to say; but at all events, her sickness was sufficiently ill- 
timed and unfortunate. I succeeded in a second attempt to 
mount her, and with a slow pace we moved forward on the 
trail of the Indians. It led us up a hill and over a dreary 
plain ; and here, to our great mortification, the traces 
almost disappeared, for the ground was hard as adamant ; 
and if its flinty surface had ever retained the dint of a 
hoof, the marks had been washed away by the deluge of yes- 
terday. An Indian village, in its disorderly march, is 
scattered over the prairie often to the width of half a 
mile; so that its trail is nowhere clearly marked, and the 
task of following it is made doubly wearisome and difficult. 
By good fortune, many large ant-hills, a yard or more in 
diameter, were scattered over the plain, and these were 
frequently broken by the footprints of men and horses, 
and marked by traces of the lodge-poles. The succulent 
leaves of the prickly-pear, bruised from the same causes. 



HUNTING INDIANS. 193 

also helped to guide us; so inch by inch we moved along. 
Often we lost the trail altogether, and then found it 
again; but late in the afternoon we were totally at fault. 
We stood alone, without a clew to guide us. The broken 
plain expanded for league after league around us, and in 
front the long, dark ridge of mountains stretched from 
north to south. Mount Laramie, a little on our right, 
towered high above the rest, and from a dark valley just 
beyond one of its lower declivities, we discerned volumes 
of white smoke rising slowly. 

"I think," said Raymond, "some Indians must be there. 
Perhaps we had better go." But this plan was not lightly 
to be adopted, and we determined still to continue our 
search after the lost trail. Our good stars prompted us 
to this decision, for we afterward had reason to believe, 
from information given us by the Indians, that the smoke 
was raised as a decoy by a Crow war-party. 

Evening was coming on, and there was neither wood nor 
water nearer than the foot of the mountains. So thither 
we turned, directing our course towards the point where 
Laramie Creek issues upon the prairie. When we reached 
it, the bare tops of the mountains were still bright with 
sunshine. The little river was breaking, with an angry 
current, from its dark prison. There was something in 
the close vicinity of the mountains and the loud surg- 
ing of the rapids wonderfully cheering and exhilarating. 
There was a grass-plot by the river bank, surrounded by 
low ridges, which would effectually screen us and our 
fire from the sight of wandering Indians. Here among 
the grass, I observed numerous circles of large stones, 
traces of a Dakota winter encampment. We lay down, 
and did not awake till the sun was up. A large rock 
projected from the shore, and behind it the deep water 

•3 



194 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

was slowly eddying round and round. The temptation 
was irresistible. I threw off my clothes, leaped in, suf- 
fered myself to be borne once round with the current, 
and then, seizing the strong root of a water-plant, drew 
myself to the shore. The effect was so refreshing that I 
mistook it for returning health. But scarcely were we 
mounted and on our way, before the momentary glow 
passed. Again I hung as usual in my seat, scarcely able 
to hold myself erect. 

"Look yonder," said Raymond; "you see that big hol- 
low there; the Indians must have gone that way, if they 
went anywhere about here." 

We reached the gap, which was like a deep notch cut 
into the mountain-ridge, and here we soon found an ant- 
hill furrowed with the mark of a lodge-pole. This was 
quite enough; there could be no doubt now. As we rode 
on, the opening growing narrower, the Indians had been 
compelled to march in closer order, and the traces be- 
came numerous and distinct. The gap terminated in a 
rocky gateway, leading into a rough and steep defile, be- 
tween two precipitous mountains. Here grass and weeds 
were bruised to fragments by the throng that had passed 
through. We moved slowly over the rocks, up the pas- 
sage; and in this toilsome manner advanced for an hour 
or two, bare precipices, hundreds of feet high, shooting 
up on either hand. Raymond, with his hardy mule, was 
a few rods before me when we came to the foot of an 
ascent steeper than the rest, and which I trusted might 
prove the highest point of the defile. Pauline strained 
upward for a few yards, moaning and stumbling, and then 
came to a dead stop, unable to proceed further. I dis- 
mounted, and attempted to lead her; but my own ex- 
hausted strength soon gave out ; so I loosened the trail-rope 



HUNTING INDIANS. 195 

from her neck, and tying it round my arm, crawled up 
on my hands and knees. I gained the top, totally spent, 
the sweat-drops trickling from my forehead. Pauline stood 
like a statue by my side, her shadow falling upon the 
scorching rock; and in this shade, for there was no other, 
I lay for some time, scarcely able to move a limb. All 
around, the black crags, sharp as needles at the top, stood 
baking in the sun, without tree or bush or blade of grass 
to cover their nakedness. The whole scene seemed parched 
with a pitiless, insufferable heat. 

After a while I could mount again, and we moved on, 
descending the defile on its western side. There was some- 
thing ridiculous in the situation. Man and horse were help- 
less alike. Pauline and I could neither fight nor run. 

Raymond's saddle-girth slipped; and while I proceeded 
he stopped to repair the mischief. I came to the top of 
a little declivity, where a welcome sight greeted my eye; 
a nook of fresh green grass nestled among the cliffs, 
sunny clumps of bushes on one side, and shaggy old 
pine-trees leaning from the rocks on the other. A shrill, 
familiar voice saluted me, and recalled me to days of 
boyhood, — that of the insect called the "locust" by New 
England schoolboys, which was clinging among the heated 
boughs of the old pine-trees. Then, too, as I passed the 
bushes, the low sound of falling water reached my ear. 
Pauline turned of her own accord, and pushing through the 
boughs we found a black rock overarched by the cool green 
canopy. An icy stream was pouring from its side into a 
wide basin of white sand, whence it had no visible outlet, but 
filtered through into the soil below. While I filled a tin 
cup at the spring, Pauline was eagerly plunging her head 
deep in the pool. Other visitors had been there before 
us. All around in the soft soil were the footprints of elk, 



196 THE OREGON TRAIL. 



deer, and the Rocky Mountain sheep ; and the grizzly bear too 
had left the recent prints of his broad foot, with its frightful 
array of claws. Among these mountains was his home. 

Soon after leaving the spring we found a little grassy 
plain, encircled by the mountains, and marked, to our 
great joy, with all the traces of an Indian camp. Ray- 
mond's practised eye detected certain signs, by which he 
recognized the spot where Reynal's lodge had been pitched 
and his horses picketed. I approached, and stood looking 
at the place. Reynal and I had, I believe, hardly a feel- 
ing in common, and it perplexed me a good deal to under- 
stand why I should look with so much interest on the ashes 
of his fire, when between him and me there was no other 
bond of sympathy than the slender and precarious one of 
a kindred race. 

In half an hour from this we were free of the moun- 
tains. There was a plain before us totally barren and 
thickly peopled in many parts with prairie-dogs, who sat 
at the mouths of their burrows and yelped at us as we 
passed. The plain, as we thought, was about six miles 
wide, but it cost us two hours to cross it. Then another 
mountain-range rose before us. From the dense bushes 
that clothed the steeps for a thousand feet shot up black 
crags, all leaning one way, and shattered by storms and 
thunder into grim and threatening shapes. As we entered 
a narrow passage on the trail of the Indians, they im- 
pended frightfully above our heads. 

Our course was through thick woods, in the shade and 
sunlight of overhanging boughs. As we wound from side 
to side of the passage to avoid its obstructions, we could 
see at intervals, through the foliage, the awful forms of 
the gigantic cliffs, that seemed to hem us in on the right 
and on the left, before and behind. 



HUNTING INDIANS. 197 



In an open space, fenced in by high rocks, stood two 
Indian forts, of a square form, rudely built of logs and 
branches. They were somewhat ruinous, having probably 
been constructed the year before. Each might have contained 
about twenty men. Perhaps in this gloomy spot some party 
had been beset by enemies, and those scowling rocks and 
blasted trees might not long since have looked down on 
a conflict, unchronicled and unknown. Yet if any traces 
of bloodshed remained they were hidden by the bushes 
and tall, rank weeds. 

Gradually the mountains drew apart, and the passage 
expanded into a plain, where again we found traces of an 
Indian encampment. There were trees and bushes just 
before us, and we stopped here for an hour's rest and re- 
freshment. When we had finished our meal Raymond 
struck fire, and lighting his pipe, sat down at the foot 
of a tree to smoke. For some time I observed him puff- 
ing away with a face of unusual solemnity. Then slowly 
taking the pipe from his lips, he looked up and remarked 
that we had better not go any farther. 

"Why not.?" asked I. 

He said that the country was become very dangerous, 
that we were entering the range of the Snakes, Arapahoes, 
and Gros-ventre Blackfeet, and that if any of their wander- 
ing parties should meet us, it would cost us our lives; but 
he added, with blunt fidelity, that he would go anywhere I 
wished. I told him to bring up the animals, and mount- 
ing them we proceeded again. I confess that, as we moved 
forward, the prospect seemed but a doubtful one. I would 
have given the world for my ordinary elasticity of body and 
mind, and for a horse of such strength and spirit as the 
journey required. 

Closer and closer the rocks gathered round us, growing 



IQS the OREGON TRAIL. 

taller and steeper, and pressing more and more upon our 
path. We entered at length a defile which, in its way, I 
never have seen rivalled. The mountain was cracked from 
top to bottom, and we were creeping along the bottom of 
the fissure, in dampness and gloom, with the clink of hoofs 
on the loose shingly rocks, and the hoarse murmuring of a 
petulant brook which kept us company. Sometimes the 
water, foaming among the stones, overspread the whole nar- 
row passage; sometimes, withdrawing to one side, it gave us 
room to pass dry-shod. Looking up, we could see a nar- 
row ribbon of bright blue sky between the dark edges of 
the opposing cliffs. This did not last long. The pas- 
sage soon widened, and sunbeams found their way down, 
flashing upon the black waters. The defile would spread 
to many rods in width ; bushes, trees, and flowers would 
spring by the side of the brook; the cliffs would be feath- 
ered with shrubbery that clung in every crevice, and 
fringed with trees that grew along their sunny edges. 
Then we would be moving again in darkness. The pas- 
sage seemed about four miles long, and before we reached 
the end of it the unshod hoofs of our animals were broken, 
and their legs cut by the sharp stones. Issuing from the 
mountain we found another plain. All around it stood 
a circle of precipices, that seemed the impersonation of 
Silence and Solitude. Here again the Indians had en- 
camped, as well they might after passing with their 
women, children, and horses, through the gulf behind us. 
In one day we had made a journey which it had cost them 
three to accomplish. 

The only outlet to this amphitheatre lay over a hill 
some two hundred feet high, up which we moved with 
difficulty. Looking from the top we saw that at last we 
were free of the mountains. The prairie spread before 



HUNTING INDIANS 199 

US, but so wild and broken that the view was everywhere 
obstructed. Far on our left one tall hill swelled up against 
the sky, on the smooth, pale-green surface of which four 
slowly moving black specks were discernible. They were 
evidently buffalo, and we hailed the sight as a good augury; 
for where the buffalo were, there the Indians would probably 
be found We hoped on that very night to reach the vil- 
lage. We were anxious to do so for a double reason, wish- 
ing to bring our journey to an end, and knowing moreover 
that though to enter the village in broad daylight would be 
perfectly safe, yet to encamp in its vicinity would be dan- 
gerous. But as we rode on, the sun was sinking, and soon 
was within half an hour of the horizon. We ascended a hill 
and looked about us for a spot for our encampment. The 
prairie was like a turbulent ocean suddenly congealed when 
its waves were at the highest, and it lay half in light and 
half in shadow, as the rich sunshine, yellow as gold, was 
pouring over it. The rough bushes of the wild sage were 
growing everywhere, its dull pale-green overspreading hill 
and hollow. Yet a little way before us a bright green 
belt of grass was winding along the plain, and here and 
there throughout its course glistened pools of water. We 
went down to it, kindled a fire, and turned our horses loose 
to feed. It was a little trickling brook, that for some yards 
on either side turned the barren prairie into fertility, and 
here and there it spread into deep pools, where the beavers 
had dammed it up. 

We placed our last remaining piece of antelope before 
a scanty fire, mournfully reflecting on our exhausted stock 
of provisions. Just then a large gray hare, peculiar to 
these prairies, came jumping along, and seated himself 
within fifty yards to look at us. I thoughtlessly raised 
my rifle to shoot him, but Raymond called out to me not 



200 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

to fire, for fear the report should reach the ears of the 
Indians. That night for the first time we considered that 
the danger to which we were exposed was of a somewhat 
serious character; and to those who are unacquainted with 
Indians, it may seem strange that our chief apprehensions 
arose from the supposed proximity of the people whom we 
intended to visit. Had any straggling party of these faith- 
ful friends caught sight of us from the hill-top, they would 
probably have returned in the night to plunder us of our 
horses, and perhaps of our scalps. But the prairie is unfa- 
vorable to nervousness ; and I presume that neither Ray- 
mond nor I thought twice of the matter that evening. 

For eight hours, pillowed on our saddles, we lay insen- 
sible as logs. Pauline's yellow head was stretched over 
me when I awoke. I rose and examined her. Her feet 
were bruised and swollen by the accidents of yesterday, 
but her eye was brighter, her motions livelier, and her 
mysterious malady had visibly abated. We moved on, 
hoping within an hour to come in sight of the Indian 
village; but again disappointment awaited us. The trail 
disappeared upon a hard and stony plain. Raymond and 
I rode from side to side, scrutinizing every yard of 
ground, until at length I found traces of the lodge-poles, 
by the side of a ridge of rocks. We began again to follow 
them. 

"What is that black spot out there on the prairie.^ " 

"It looks like a dead buffalo," answered Raymond. 

We rode to it, and found it to be the huge carcass of 
a bull killed by the hunters as they had passed. Tangled 
hair and scraps of hide were scattered on all sides, for 
the wolves had made merry over it, and hollowed out the 
entire carcass. It was covered with myriads of large black 
crickets, and from its appearance must have lain there four 



HUNTING INDIANS. 201 

or five days. The sight was a disheartening one, and I 
observed to Raymond that the Indians might still be fifty 
or sixty miles off. But he shook his head, and replied 
that they dared not go so far for fear of their enemies the 
Snakes. 

Soon after this we lost the trail again, and ascended a 
neighboring ridge, totally at a loss. Before us lay a plain 
perfectly flat, spreading on the right and left, without 
apparent limit, and bounded in front by a long, broken 
line of hills, ten or twelve miles distant. All was open 
and exposed to view, yet not a buffalo nor an Indian was 
visible. 

"Do you see that.?" said Raymond; "now we had better 
turn round." 

But as Raymond's bourgeois thought otherwise, we de- 
scended the hill and began to cross the plain. We had 
come so far that neither Pauline's limbs nor my own 
could carry me back to Fort Laramie. I considered that 
the lines of expediency and inclination tallied exactly, 
and that the most prudent course was to keep forward. 
The ground immediately around us was thickly strewn 
with the skulls and bones of buffalo, for here, a year or 
two before, the Indians had made a "surround;" yet no 
living game was in sight. At length an antelope sprang 
up and gazed at us. We fired together, and both missed, 
although the animal stood, a fair mark, within eighty yards. 
This ill-success might perhaps be charged to our own eager- 
ness, for by this time we had no provisions left except a 
little flour. We could see several pools of water, glisten- 
ing in the distance. As we approached, wolves and ante- 
lopes bounded away through the tall grass around them, 
and flocks of large white plover flew screaming over their 
surface. Having failed of the antelope Raymond tried his 



202 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

hand at the birds, with the same ill-success. The water 
also disappointed us. Its margin was so mired by the 
crowd of buffalo that our timorous animals were afraid to 
approach. So we turned away and moved towards the 
hills. The rank grass, where it was not trampled down 
by the buffalo, fairly swept our horses' necks. 

Again we found the same execrable barren prairie, offer- 
ing no clew by which to guide our way. As we drew near 
the hills an opening appeared, through which the Indians 
must have gone if they had passed that way at all. Slowly 
we began to ascend it. I felt the most dreary forebodings 
of ill-success when on looking round I could discover 
neither dent of hoof, nor footprint, nor trace of lodge- 
pole, though the passage was encumbered by the skulls 
of buffalo. We heard thunder muttering; another storm 
was coming on. 

As we gained the top of the gap the prospect beyond 
began to disclose itself. First, we saw a long dark line 
of ragged clouds upon the horizon, while above them rose 
the peaks of the Medicine-Bow range, the vanguard of the 
Rocky Mountains; then little by little the plain came 
into view, a vast green uniformity, forlorn and tenant- 
less, though Laramie Creek glistened in a waving line 
over its surface, without a bush or a tree upon its banks. 
As yet, the round projecting shoulder of a hill inter- 
cepted a part of the view. I rode in advance, when sud- 
denly I could distinguish a few dark spots on the prairie, 
along the bank of the stream. 

" Buffalo ! " said I. 

"Horses, by God!" exclaimed Raymond, lashing his 
mule forward as he spoke. More and more of the plain 
disclosed itself, and more and more horses appeared scat- 
tered along the river bank, or feeding in bands over the 



HUNTING INDIANS. 203 

prairie. Then, standing in a circle by the stream, swarm- 
ing with their savage inhabitants, we saw, a mile or more 
off, the tall lodges of the Ogillallah. Never did the heart 
of wanderer more gladden at the sight of home than did 
mine at the sight of that Indian camp. 




jJ^Jj.,ji^ji<^9^P(R^ 






CHAPTER XIV. 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 



THIS is hardly the place for portraying the mental 
features of the Indians. The same picture, slightly 
changed in shade and coloring, would serve with very few 
exceptions for all the tribes north of the Mexican terri- 
tories. But with this similarity in their modes of thought, 
the tribes of the lake and ocean shores, of the forests and 
of the plains, differ greatly in their manner of life. Hav- 
ing been domesticated for several weeks among one of the 
wildest of the hordes that roam over the remote prairies, 
I had unusual opportunities of observing them, and flatter 
myself that a sketch of the scenes that passed daily be- 
fore my eyes may not be without interest. They were 
thorough savages. Neither their manners nor their ideas 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 205 

were in the slightest degree modified by contact with civili- 
zation. They knew nothing of the power and real charac- 
ter of the white men, and their children would scream in 
terror when they saw me. Their religion, superstitions, 
and prejudices were those handed down to them from 
immemorial time. They fought with the weapons that 
their fathers fought with, and wore the same garments of 
skins. They were living representatives of the "stone 
age;" for though their lances and arrows were tipped 
with iron procured from the traders, they still used the 
rude stone mallet of the primeval world. 

Great changes are at hand in that region. With the 
stream of emigration to Oregon and California, the buf- 
falo will dwindle away, and the large wandering com- 
munities who depend on them for support must be broken 
and scattered. The Indians will soon be abased by whis- 
key and overawed by military posts; so that within a few 
years the traveller may pass in tolerable security through 
their country. Its danger and its charm will have disap- 
peared together. 

As soon as Raymond and I discovered the village from 
the gap in the hills, we were seen in our turn ; keen eyes 
were constantly on the watch. As we rode down upon 
the plain, the side of the village nearest us was darkened 
with a crowd of naked figures. Several men came forward 
to meet us. I could distinguish among them the green 
blanket of the Frenchman Reynal. When we came up 
the ceremony of shaking hands had to be gone through 
in due form, and then all were eager to know what had 
become of the rest of my party. I satisfied them on this 
point, and we all moved together towards the village. 

" You 've missed it," said Reynal; "if you'd been here 
day before yesterday, you 'd have found the whole prairie 



206 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

over yonder black with buffalo as far as you could see. 
There were no cows, though, — nothing but bulls. We 
made a 'surround ' every day till yesterday. See the vil- 
lage there; don't that look like good living.^" 

In fact I could see, even at that distance, long cords 
stretched from lodge to lodge, over which the meat, cut 
by the squaws into thin sheets, was hanging to dry in 
the sun. I noticed too that the village was somewhat 
smaller than when I had last seen it, and I asked Reynal 
the cause. He said that old Le Borgne had felt too weak 
to pass over the mountains, and so had remained behind 
with all his relations, including Mahto-Tatonka and his 
brothers. The Whirlwind too had been unwilling to come 
so far, because, as Reynal said, he was afraid. Only half 
a dozen lodges had adhered to him, the main body of the 
village setting their chief's authority at naught, and tak 
ing the course most agreeable to their inclinations. 

"What chiefs are there in the village now.^ " asked I. 

"Well," said Reynal, "there's old Red-Water, and the 
Eagle-Feather, and the Big Crow, and the Mad Wolf, 
and The Panther, and the White-Shield, and — what 's 
his name.'' — the half-breed Cheyenne." 

By this time we were close to the village, and I observed 
that while the greater part of the lodges were very large 
and neat in their appearance, there was at one side a clus- 
ter of squalid, miserable huts. I looked towards them and 
made some remark about their wretched appearance. But 
I was touching upon delicate ground. 

"My squaw's relations live in those lodges," said Rey- 
nal, very warmly; "and there isn't a better set in the 
whole village." 

" Are there any chiefs among them } " 

"Chiefs?" said Reynal; "yes, plenty!" 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 207 

" What are their names ? " 

"Their names? Why, there's the Arrow-Head. If 
he isn't a chief he ought to be one. And there 's the 
Hail-Storm. He's nothing but a boy, to be sure; but 
he's bound to be a chief one of these days." 

Just then we passed between two of the lodges, and en- 
tered the great area of the village. Superb naked figures 
stood silently gazing on us. 

"Where 's the Bad Wound's lodge .^ " said I to Reynal. 

"There you've missed it again! The Bad Wound is 
away with The Whirlwind. If you could have found him 
here, and gone to live in his lodge, he would have treated 
you better than any man in the village. But there 's the 
Big Crow's lodge yonder, next to old Red-Water's. He's 
a good Indian for the whites, and I advise you to go and 
live with him." 

"Are there many squaws and children in his lodge?" 
said I. 

"No, only one squaw and two or three children. He 
keeps the rest in a separate lodge by themselves." 

So, still followed by a crowd of Indians, Raymond and 
I rode up to the entrance of the Big Crow's lodge. A 
squaw came out immediately and took our horses. I put 
aside the leather flap that covered the low opening, and 
stooping, entered the Big Crow's dwelling. There I could 
see the chief in the dim light, seated at one side, on a 
pile of buffalo robes. He greeted me with a guttural 
"How, cola!" I requested Reynal to tell him that Ray- 
mond and I were come to live with him. The Big Crow 
gave another low exclamation. The announcement may 
seem intrusive, but, in fact, every Indian in the village 
would have deemed himself honored that white men should 
give such preference to his hospitality. 



208 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

The squaw spread a buffalo -robe for us in the guest's 
place at the head of the lodge. Our saddles were brought 
in, and scarcely were we seated upon them before the 
place was thronged with Indians, crowding in to see us. 
The Big Crow produced his pipe and filled it with the 
mixture of tobacco and shongsasha, or red willow bark. 
Round and round it passed, and a lively conversation went 
forward. Meanwhile a squaw placed before the two guests 
a wooden bowl of boiled buffalo-meat; but unhappily this 
was not the only banquet destined to be inflicted on us. 
One after another, boys and young squaws thrust their 
heads in at the opening, to invite us to various feasts in 
different parts of the village. For half an hour or more 
we were actively engaged in passing from lodge to lodge, 
tasting in each of the bowl of meat set before us, and inhal- 
ing a whiff or two from our entertainer's pipe. A thunder- 
storm that had been threatening for some time now began in 
good earnest. We crossed over to Reynal's lodge, though 
it hardly deserved the name, for it consisted only of a few 
old buffalo-robes, supported on poles, and was quite open 
on one side. Here we sat down, and the Indians gath- 
ered round us. 

"What is it.? " said I, "that makes the thunder.' " 

"It's my belief," said Reynal, "that it's a big stone 
rolling over the sky." 

"Very likely," I replied; "but I want to know what the 
Indians think about it." 

So he interpreted my question, which produced some 
debate. There was a difference of opinion. At last old 
Mene-Seela, or Red-Water, who sat by himself at one 
side, looked up with his withered face, and said he had 
always known what the thunder was. It was a great black 
bird ; and once he had seen it, in a dream, swooping 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 209 

down from the Black Hills, with its loud-roaring wings; 
and when it flapped them over a lake, they struck light- 
ning from the water. 

"The thunder is bad," said another old man, who sat 
muffled in his buffalo-robe; "he killed my brother last 
summer." 

Reynal, at my request, asked for an explanation; but 
the old man remained doggedly silent and would not look 
up. Some time after, I learned how the accident occurred. 
The man who was killed belonged to an association which, 
among other mystic functions, claimed the exclusive power 
and privilege of fighting the thunder. Whenever a storm 
which they wished to avert was threatening, the thunder- 
fighters would take their bows and arrows, their guns, 
their magic drum, and a sort of whistle made out of the 
wing-bone of the war-eagle, and, thus equipped, run out 
and fire at the rising cloud, whooping, yelling, whistling, 
and beating their drum to frighten it down again. One 
afternoon a heavy black cloud was coming up, and they 
repaired to the top of a hill, where they brought all their 
magic artillery into play against it. But the undaunted 
thunder, refusing to be terrified, darted out a bright flash, 
which struck one of the party dead as he was in the very 
act of shaking his long iron-pointed lance against it. The 
rest scattered and ran, yelling in an ecstasy of superstitious 
terror, back to their lodges. 

The lodge of my host Kongra Tonga, or the Big Crow, 
presented a picturesque spectacle that evening. A score 
or more of Indians were seated round it in a circle, 
their dark naked forms just visible by the dull light of 
the smouldering fire in the middle. The pipe glowed 
brightly in the gloom as it passed from hand to hand. 
Then a squaw would drop a piece of buffalo-fat on the 

14 



2IO THE OREGON TRAIL. 

dull embers. Instantly a bright flame would leap up, 
darting its light to the very apex of the tall, conical struc- 
ture, where the tops of the slender poles that supported 
the covering of hide were gathered together. It gilded 
the features of the Indians, as with animated gestures 
they sat, telling their endless stories of war and hunt- 
ing, and displayed rude garments of skins that hung round 
the lodge, — the bow, quiver, and lance, suspended over 
the resting-place of the chief, and the rifles and powder- 
horns of the two white guests. For a moment all would 
be bright as day; then the flames would die out; fitful 
flashes from the embers would illumine the lodge, and then 
leave it in darkness. Then the light would wholly fade, 
and the lodge and all within it be involved again in 
obscurity. 

As I left the lodge next morning I was saluted by 
howling and yelping all around the village, and half its 
canine population rushed forth to the attack. Being as 
cowardly as they were clamorous, they kept jumping about 
me at the distance of a few yards, only one little cur, about 
ten inches long, having spirit enough to make a direct 
assault. He dashed valiantly at the leather tassel which 
in the Dakota fashion was trailing behind the heel of my 
moccasin, and kept his hold, growling and snarling all 
the while, though every step I made almost jerked him 
over on his back. As I knew that the eyes of the whole 
village were on the watch to see if I showed any sign of 
fear, I walked forward without looking to the right or 
left, surrounded wherever I went by this magic circle of 
dogs. When I came to Reynal's lodge I sat down by it; 
on which the dogs dispersed growling to their respective 
quarters. Only one large white one remained, running 
about before me and showing his teeth. I called him. 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 211 

but he only growled the more. I looked at him well. 
He was fat and sleek; just such a dog as I wanted. " My 
friend," thought I, "you shall pay for this! I will have 
you eaten this very morning!" 

I intended that day to give the Indians a feast, by way 
of conveying a favorable impression of my character and 
dignity; and a white dog is the dish which the customs 
of the Dakota prescribe for all occasions of formality and 
importance. I consulted Reynal : he soon discovered that 
an old woman in the next lodge was owner of the white 
dog. I took a gaudy cotton handkerchief, and, laying it 
on the ground, arranged some vermilion, beads, and other 
trinkets upon it. Then the old squaw was summoned. 
I pointed to the dog and to the handkerchief. She gave 
a scream of delight, snatched up the prize, and vanished 
with it into her lodge. For a few more trifles, I en- 
gaged the services of two other squaws, each of whom 
took the white dog by one of his paws, and led him away 
behind the lodges. Having killed him they threw him 
into a fire to singe; then chopped him up and put him 
into two large kettles to boil. Meanwhile I told Ray- 
mond to fry in buffalo-fat what little flour we had left, 
and also to make a kettle of tea as an additional luxury. 

The Big Crow's squaw was briskly at work sweeping 
out the lodge for the approaching festivity. I confided 
to my host himself the task of inviting the guests, think- 
ing that I might thereby shift from my own shoulders 
the odium of neglect and oversight. 

When feasting is in question one hour of the day serves 
an Indian as well as another. My entertainment came off 
at about eleven o'clock. At that hour Reynal and Ray- 
mond walked across the area of the village, to the admira- 
tion of the inhabitants, carrying the two kettles of dog 



212 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

meat slung on a pole between them. These they placed 
in the centre of the lodge, and then went back for the 
bread and the tea. Meanwhile I had put on a pair of 
brilliant moccasins, and substituted for my old buck-skin 
frock a coat which I had brought with me in view of 
such public occasions. I also made careful use of the 
razor, an operation which no man will neglect who de- 
sires to gain the good opinion of Indians. Thus attired, 
I seated myself between Reynal and Raymond at the 
head of the lodge. Only a few minutes elapsed before 
all the guests had come in and were seated on the ground, 
wedged together in a close circle. Each brought with 
him a wooden bowl to hold his share of the repast. When 
all were assembled, two of the officials, called "soldiers" 
by the white men, came forward with ladles made of the 
horn of the Rocky Mountain sheep, and began to dis- 
tribute the feast, assigning a double share to the old men 
and chiefs. The dog vanished with astonishing celerity, 
and each guest turned his dish bottom upward to show 
that all was gone. Then the bread was distributed in its 
turn, and finally the tea. As the "soldiers" poured it 
out into the same wooden bowls that had served for the 
substantial part of the meal, I thought it had a particu- 
larly curious and uninviting color. 

Oh," said Reynal, "there was not tea enough, so I stirred 
some soot in the kettle, to make it look strong." 

Fortunately an Indian's palate is not very discriminating. 
The tea was well sweetened, and that was all they cared 
for. 

Now the feast being over, the time for speech-making 
was come. The Big Crow produced a flat piece of wood, 
on which he cut up tobacco and s/iongsasha, and mixed 
them in due proportions. The pipes were filled and 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 213 

passed from hand to hand around the company. Then I 
began my speech, each sentence being interpreted by 
Reynal as I went on, and echoed by the whole audience 
with the usual exclamations of assent and approval. As 
nearly as I can recollect, it was as follows: — 

"I had come," I told them, "from a country so far dis- 
tant that at the rate they travel, they could not reach it 
in a year." 

" How! how! " 

" There the Meneaska were more numerous than the 
blades of grass on the prairie. The squaws were far 
more beautiful than any they had ever seen, and all the 
men were brave warriors." 

" How! how! how! " 

I was assailed by twinges of conscience as I uttered these 
last words. But I recovered myself and began again. 

"While I was living m the Meneaska lodges, I had 
heard of the Ogillallah, how great and brave a nation 
they were, how they loved the whites, and how well they 
could hunt the buffalo and strike their enemies. I re- 
solved to come and see if all that I heard was true." 

"How! how! how! how!" 

"As I had come on horseback through the mountains, 
I had been able to bring them only a very few presents." 

"How!" 

"Rut I had enough tobacco to give them all a small 
piece. They might smoke it and see how much better it 
was than the tobacco which they got from the traders." 

" How! how! how! " 

"I had plenty of powder, lead, knives, and tobacco at 
Fort Laramie. These I was an.xious to give them, and if 
any of them should come to the fort before I went away, 
T would make them handsome presents." 



214 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

"How! how! how! how!" 

Raymond then cut up and distributed among them two 
or three pounds of tobacco, and old Mene-Seela began to 
make a- reply. It was long, but the following was the 
pith of it. 

" He had always loved the whites. They were the wisest 
people on earth. He believed they could do anything, and 
he was always glad when any of them came to live in the 
Ogillallah lodges. It was true I had not made them many 
presents, but the reason of it was plain. It was clear that 
I liked them, or I never should have come so far to find 
their village." 

Several other speeches of similar import followed, and 
then, this more serious matter being disposed of, there was 
an interval of smoking, laughing, and conversation. Old 
Mene-Seela suddenly interrupted it with a loud voice: — 

"Now is a good time," he said, "when all the old men 
and chiefs are here together, to decide what the people 
shall do. We came over the mountains to make our 
lodges for next year. Our old ones are good for noth- 
ing; they are rotten and worn out. But we have been 
disappointed. We have killed buffalo-bulls enough, but 
we have found no herds of cows, and the skins of bulls 
are too thick and heavy for our squaws to make lodges 
of. There must be plenty of cows about the Medicine- 
Bow Mountain. We ought to go there. To be sure it is 
farther westward than we have ever been before, and per- 
haps the Snakes will attack us, for those hunting-grounds 
belong to them. But we must have new lodges at any 
rate; our old ones will not serve for another year. We 
ought not to be afraid of the Snakes. Our warriors are 
brave, and they are all ready for war. Besides, we have 
three white men with their rifles to help us." 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 21 5 

This speech produced a good deal of debate. As Reynal 
did not interpret what was said, I could only judge of the 
meaning by the features and gestures of the speakers. At 
the end of it however the greater number seemed to have 
fallen in with Mene-Seela's opinion. A short silence fol- 
lowed, and then the old man struck up a discordant chant, 
which I was told was a song of thanks for the entertain- 
ment I had given them. 

"Now, said he, "let us go, and give the white men a 
chance to breathe." 

So the company all dispersed into the open air, and for 
some time the old chief was walking round the village, 
singing his song in praise of the feast, after the custom 
of the nation. 

At last the day drew to a close, and as the sun went 
down the horses came trooping from the surrounding 
plains to be picketed before the dwellings of their re- 
spective masters. Soon within the great circle of lodges 
appeared another concentric circle of restless horses; and 
here and there fires glowed and flickered amid the gloom, 
on the dusky figures around them. I went over and sat 
by the lodge of Reynal. The Eagle-Feather, who was a 
son of Mene-Seela, and brother of my host the Big Crow, 
was seated there already, and I asked him if the village 
would move in the morning. He shook his head, and 
said that nobody could tell, for since old Mahto-Tatonka 
had died, the people had been like children that did not 
know their own minds. They were no better than a body 
without a head. So I, as well as the Indians themselves, 
fell asleep that night without knowing whether we should 
set out in the morning towards the country of the Snakes. 

At daybreak, however, as I was coming up from the ri\er 
after my morning's ablutions, I saw that a movement was 



2l6 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

contemplated. Some of the lodges were reduced to noth- 
ing but bare skeletons of poles ; the leather covering of 
others was flapping in the wind as the squaws pulled it 
off. One or two chiefs of note had resolved, it seemed, 
on moving ; and they having set their squaws to work, the 
example was followed by the rest of the village. One by- 
one the lodges were sinking down in rapid succession, 
and where the great circle of the village had been only a 
few moments before, nothing now remained but a ring of 
horses and Indians, crowded in confusion together. The 
ruins of the lodges were spread over the ground, together 
with kettles, stone mallets, great ladles of horn, buffalo- 
robes, and cases of painted hide, filled with dried meat. 
' Squaws bustled about in busy preparation, the old hags 
screaming to one another at the stretch of their leathern 
lungs. The shaggy horses were patiently standing while 
the lodge-poles were lashed to their sides, and the bag- 
gage piled upon their backs. The dogs, with tongues loll- 
ing out, lay lazily panting, and waiting for the time of 
departure. Each warrior sat on the ground by the decay- 
ing embers of his fire, unmoved amid the confusion, hold- 
ing in his hand the long trail-rope of his horse. 

As their preparations were completed, each family moved 
off the ground. The crowd was rapidly melting away. I 
could see them crossing the river, and passing in quick 
succession along the profile of the hill on the farther 
side. When all were gone I mounted and set out after 
them, followed by Raymond, and, as we gained the sum- 
mit, the whole village came in view at once, straggling 
away for a mile or more over the barren plains before us. 
Everywhere glittered the iron points of lances. The sun 
never shone upon a more strange array. Here were the 
heavy-laden pack-horses, some wretched old woman leading 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 



217 




them, 
and two or 
three children 
clinging to their backs. 
Here were mules or ponies covered 
from head to tail with gaudy trappings, and mounted by 
some gay young squaw, grinning bashfulness and pleas- 
ure as the Meneaska looked at her. Boys with miniature 
bows and arrows wandered over the plains, little naked chil- 
dren ran along on foot, and numberless dogs scampered 
among the feet of the horses. The young braves, gaudy with 
paint and feathers, rode in groups among the crowd, often 
galloping, two or three at once along the line, to try the 
speed of their horses. Here and there you might see a rank 
of sturdy pedestrians stalking along in their white buffalo- 



2l8 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

robes. These were the dignitaries of the village, the old 
men and warriors, to whose age and experience that wander- 
ing democracy yielded a silent deference. With the rough 
prairie and the broken hills for its background, the rest- 
less scene was striking and picturesque beyond descrip- 
tion. Days and weeks made me familiar with it, but 
never impaired its effect upon my fancy. 

As we moved on, the broken column grew yet more 
scattered and disorderly, until, as we approached the foot 
of a hill, I saw the old men before mentioned seating 
themselves in a line upon the ground, in advance of the 
whole. They lighted a pipe and sat smoking, laughing, 
and telling stories, while the people, stopping as they 
successively came up, were soon gathered in a crowd 
behind them. Then the old men rose, drew their buffalo- 
robes over their shoulders, and strode on as before. Gain- 
ing the top of the hill, we found a steep declivity before 
us. There was not a minute's pause. The whole de- 
scended in a mass, amid dust and confusion. The horses 
braced their feet as they slid down, women and children 
screamed, dogs yelped as they were trodden upon, while 
stones and earth went rolling to the bottom. In a few 
moments I could see the village from the summit, spread- 
ing again far and wide over the plain below. 

At our encampment that afternoon I was attacked anew 
by my old disorder. In half an hour the strength that I 
had been gaining for a week past had vanished again, and I 
became like a man in a dream. But at sunset I lay down 
in the Big Crow's lodge and slept, totally unconscious 
till the morning. The first thing that awakened me was 
a hoarse flapping over my head, and a sudden, light that 
poured in upon me. The camp was breaking up, and the 
squaws were moving the covering from the lodge. I arose 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 219 

and shook off my blanket with the feeling of perfect health ; 
but scarcely had I gained my feet when a sense of my 
helpless condition was once more forced upon me, and I 
found myself scarcely able to stand. Raymond had brought 
up Pauline and the mule, and I stooped to raise my sad- 
dle from the ground. My strength was unequal to the 
task. "You must saddle her," said I to Raymond as I 
sat down again on a pile of buffalo-robes. He did so, 
and with a painful effort I mounted. As we were pass- 
ing over a great plain, surrounded by long broken ridges, 
I rode slowly in advance of the Indians, with thoughts 
that wandered far from the time and the place. Suddenly 
the sky darkened, and thunder began to mutter. Clouds 
were rising over the hills, as dark as the first forebodmgs 
of an approaching calamity; and in a moment all around 
was wrapped in shadow. I looked behind. The Indians 
had stopped to prepare for the approaching storm, and 
the dense mass of savages stretched far to the right and 
left. Since the first attack of my disorder the effects of 
rain upon me had usually been injurious in the extreme. 
I had no strength to spare, having at that moment scarcely 
enough to keep my seat on horseback. Then, for the first 
time, it pressed upon me as a strong probability that I 
might never leave those deserts. "Well," thought I to 
myself, "the prairie makes quick and sharp work. Bet- 
ter to die here, in the saddle to the last, than to stifle 
in the hot air of a sick chamber; and a thousand times 
better than to drag out life, as many have done, in the 
helpless inaction of lingering disease." So, drawing the 
buffalo-robe on which I sat, over my head, I waited till 
the storm should come. It broke at last with a sudden 
burst of fury, and passing away as rapidly as it came, 
left the sky clear again. My reflections served me no 



220 THE OREGON TRAIL. 



Other purpose than to look back upon as a piece of curi- 
ous experience; for the rain did not produce the ill effects 
that I had expected. We encamped within an hour. Hav- 
ing no change of clothes, I contrived to borrow a curious 
kind of substitute from Reynal ; and this done, I went 
home, that is, to the Big Crow's lodge, to make the en- 
tire transfer that was necessary. Half a dozen squaws were 
in the lodge, and one of them taking my arm held it against 
her own, while a general laugh and scream of admiration 
was raised at the contrast in the color of the skin. 

Our encampment that afternoon was not far from a spur 
of the Black Hills, whose ridges, bristling with fir-trees, 
rose from the plains a mile or two on our right. That 
they might move more rapidly towards their proposed 
hunting-grounds, the Indians determined to leave at this 
place their stock of dried meat and other superfluous arti- 
cles. Some left even their lodges, and contented them- 
selves with carrying a few hides to make a shelter from 
the sun and rain. Half the inhabitants set out in the 
afternoon, with loaded pack-horses, towards the mountains. 
Here they suspended the dried meat upon trees, where the 
wolves and grizzly bears could not get at it. All returned 
at evening. Some of the young men declared that they 
had heard the reports of guns among the mountains to 
the eastward, and many surmises were thrown out as to 
the origin of these sounds. For my part, I was in hopes 
that Shaw and Henry Chatillon were coming to join us. 
I little suspected that at that very moment my unlucky 
comrade was lying on a buffalo-robe at Fort Laramie, 
fevered with ivy poison, and solacing his woes with to- 
bacco and Shakspeare. 

As we moved over the plains on the next morning, 
several young men rode about the country as scouts; and 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 221 



at length we began to see them occasionally on the tops 
of the hills, shaking their robes as a signal that they saw- 
buffalo. Soon after, some bulls came in sight. Horse- 
men darted away in pursuit, and we could see from the 
distance that one or two of the buffalo were killed. Ray- 
mond suddenly became inspired. 

"This is the country for me! " he said; " if I could only 
carry the buffalo that are killed here every month down to 
St. Louis, I 'd make my fortune in one winter. I 'd grow 
as rich as old Papin, or Mackenzie either. I call this the 
poor man's market. When I 'm hungry, I 've only got to 
take my rifle and go out and get better meat than the 
rich folks down below can get, with all their money. 
You won't catch me living in St. Louis another winter. 

"No," said Reynal, "you had better say that, after you 
and your Spanish woman almost starved to death there. 
What a fool you were ever to take her to the settlements ! " 

"Your Spanish woman.''" said I; "I never heard of her 
before. Are vou married to her.-*" 

" No," answered Raymond; "the priests don't marry their 
women, and why should I marry mine.?" 

This honorable mention of the Mexican clergy intro- 
duced the subject of religion, and I found that my two 
associates, in common with other white men in that coun- 
try, were as indifferent to their future welfare as men 
whose lives are in constant peril are apt to be. Ray- 
mond had never heard of the Pope. A certain bishop, 
who lived at Taos or at Santa Fe, embodied his loftiest 
idea of an ecclesiastical dignitary. Reynal observed that 
a priest had been at Fort Laramie two years ago, on his 
way to the Nez Perce mission, and that he had confessed 
^11 the men there, and given them absolution. " I got a 
good clearing out myself that time," said Reynal, "and 



222 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

I reckon that will do for me till I go down to the settle- 
ments again." 

Here he interrupted himself with an oath, and exclaimed : 
"Look! look! The Panther is running an antelope!" 

The Panther, on his black-and-white horse, one of the 
best in the village, came at full speed over the hill in hot 
pursuit of an antelope, that darted away like lightning 
before him. The attempt was made in mere sport and 
bravado, for very few are the horses that can for a moment 
compete in swiftness with this little animal. The ante- 
lope ran down the hill towards the main body of the 
Indians, who were moving over the plain below. Sharp 
yells were given, and horsemen galloped out to intercept 
his flight. At this he turned sharply to the left, and 
scoured away with such speed that he distanced all his 
pursuers, even the vaunted horse of the Panther himself. 
A few moments after, we witnessed a more serious sport. 
A shaggy buffalo-bull bounded out from a neighboring 
hollow, and close behind him came a slender Indian boy, 
riding without stirrups or saddle, and lashing his eager 
little horse to full speed. Yard after yard he drew closer 
to his gigantic victim, though the bull, with his short tail 
erect and his tongue lolling out a foot from his foaming 
jaws, was straining his unwieldy strength to the utmost. 
A moment more, and the boy was close alongside. It was 
our friend the Hail-Storm. He dropped the rein on his 
horse's neck and jerked an arrow from the quiver at his 
shoulder. 

"I tell you," said Reynal, "that in a year's time that 
boy will match the best hunter in the village. There, he 
has given it to him! and there goes another! You feel 
well now, old bull, don't you, with two arrows stuck in 
your lights! There, he has given him another! Hear 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 223 

how the Hail-Storm yells when he shoots ! Yes, jump at 
him; try it again, old fellow! You may jump all day 
before you get your horns into that pony ! " 

The bull sprang again and again at his assailant, but 
the horse kept dodging with wonderful celerity. At length 
the bull followed up his attack with a furious rush, and the 
Hail-Storm was put to flight, the shaggy monster following 
close behind. The boy clung in his seat like a leech, and 
secure in the speed of his little pony, looked round towards 
us and laughed. In a moment he was again alongside the 
bull, who was now driven to desperation. His eyeballs 
glared through his tangled mane, and the blood flew from 
his mouth and nostrils. Thus still battling with each 
other, the two enemies disappeared over the hill. 

Many of the Indians rode at full gallop towards the spot. 
We followed at a more moderate pace, and soon saw the bull 
lying dead on the side of the hill. The Indians were gath- 
ered around him, and several knives were already at work. 
These little instruments were plied with such wonderful 
address that the twisted sinews were cut apart, the pon- 
derous bones fell asunder as if by magic, and in a moment 
the vast carcass was reduced to a heap of bloody ruins. 
The surrounding group of savages offered no very attractive 
spectacle to a civilized eye. Some were cracking the huge 
thigh-bones and devouring the marrow within; others were 
cutting away pieces of the liver and other approved mor- 
sels, and swallowing them on the spot with the appetite 
of wolves. The faces of most of them, besmeared with 
blood from ear to ear, looked grim and horrible enough. 
My friend the White Shield proffered me a marrow-bone, 
so skilfully laid open that all the rich substance within 
was exposed to view at once. Another Indian held out a 
large piece of the delicate lining of the paunch ; but these 



224 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

courteous offerings I begged leave to decline. I noticed 
one little boy who was very busy with his knife about the 
jaws and throat of the buffalo, from which he extracted 
some morsel of peculiar delicacy. It is but fair to say 
that only certain parts of the animal are considered eligi- 
ble in these extempore banquets. 

We encamped that night, and marched westward through 
the greater part of the following day. On the next morn- 
ing we again resumed our journey. It was the seventeenth 
of July, unless my note-book misleads me. At noon we 
stopped by some pools of rain-water, and in the afternoon 
again set forward. This double movement was contrary 
to the usual practice of the Indians, but all were very 
anxious to reach the hunting-ground, kill the necessary 
number of buffalo, and retreat as soon as possible from 
the dangerous neighborhood. I pass by for the present 
some curious incidents that occurred during these marches 
and encampments. Late in the afternoon of the last-men- 
tioned day we came upon the banks of a little sandy 
stream, of which the Indians could not tell the name; for 
they were very ill acquainted with that part of the coun- 
try. So parched and arid were the prairies around that 
they could not supply grass enough for the horses to 
feed upon, and we were compelled to move farther and 
farther up the stream in search of ground for encamp- 
ment. The country was much wilder than before. The 
plains were gashed with ravines and broken into hollows 
and steep declivities, which flanked our course, as, in 
long scattered array, the Indians advanced up the side of 
the stream. Mene-Seela consulted an extraordinary oracle 
to instruct him where the buffalo were to be found. When 
he with the other chiefs sat down on the grass to smoke and 
converse, as tljey often did during the march, the old man 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 225 

picked up one of those enormous black-and-green crickets, 
which the Dakota call by a name that signifies " They who 
point out the buffalo." The "Root-Diggers," a wretched 
tribe beyond the mountains, turn them to good account by 
making them into a sort of soup, pronounced by certain 
unscrupulous trappers to be extremely rich. Holding the 
bloated insect respectfully between his fingers and thumb, 
the old Indian looked attentively at him and inquired, 
"Tell me, my father, where must we go to-morrow to 
find the buffalo.''" The cricket twisted about his long 
horns in evident embarrassment. At last he pointed, or 
seemed to point, them westward. Mene-Seela, dropping 
him gently on the grass, laughed with great glee, and 
said that if we went that way in the morning we should 
be sure to kill plenty of game. 

Towards evening we came upon a fresh, green meadow, 
traversed by the stream, and deep-set among tall, sterile 
bluffs. The Indians descended its steep bank; and as I 
was at the rear, I was one of the last to reach this point. 
Lances were glittering, feathers fluttering, and the water 
below me was crowded with men and horses passing 
through, while the meadow beyond swarmed with the 
restless crowd of Indians. The sun was just setting, and 
poured its softened light upon them through an opening in 
the hills. 

I remarked to Reynal that at last we had found a good 
'camping-ground. 

"Oh, it's very good," replied he, ironically, "especially 
if there is a Snake war-party about, and they take it into 
their heads to shoot down at us from the top of these hills. 
It's no plan of mine, 'camping in such a hole as this." 

The Indians also seemed anxious. High up on the top 
of the tallest bluff, conspicuous in the bright evening sun- 

15 



226 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 





::^^ 



iif^'- 



^V"i 



light, sat a naked 
warrior on horseback, looking around 
over the neighboring country; and Raymond told me that 
many of the young men had gone out in different direc- 
tions as scouts. 

The shadows had reached to the very summit of the 
bluffs before the lodges were erected, and the village re- 
duced again to quiet and order. A cry was suddenly raised, 
and men, women, and children came running out with 



THE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 22/ 

animated faces, and looked eagerly through the opening 
in the hills by which the stream entered from the west- 
ward. I could discern afar off some dark, heavy masses, 
passing over the sides of a low hill. They disappeared 
and then others followed. These were bands of buffalo 
cows. The hunting-ground was reached at last, and every- 
thing promised well for the morrow's chase. Being fatigued 
and exhausted, I lay down in Kongra-Tonga's lodge, when 
Raymond thrust in his head, and called upon me to come 
and see some sport. A number of Indians were gathered, 
laughing, along the line of lodges on the western side of. 
the village, and at some distance I could plainly see in, 
the twilight two huge black monsters stalking, heavily 
and solemnly, directly towards us. They were buffalo- 
bulls. The wind blew from them to the village, and such 
was their blindness and stupid it}^, that they were advanc- 
ing upon the enemy without the least consciousness of 
his presence. Raymond told me that two young men had 
hidden themselves with guns in a ravine about twenty 
yards in front of us. The two bulls walked slowly on, 
heavily swinging from side to side in their peculiar gait 
of stupid dignity. They approached within four or five 
rods of the ravine where the Indians lay in ambush. 
Here at last they seemed conscious that something was 
wrong, for they both stopped and stood perfectly still, 
without looking either to the right or to the left. Noth- 
ing of them was to be seen but two black masses of 
shaggy mane, with horns, eyes, and nose in the centre, 
and a pair of hoofs visible at the bottom. At last the 
more intelligent of them seemed to have concluded that 
it was time to retire. Very slowly, and with an air of 
the gravest and most majestic deliberation, he began to 
turn round, as if he were revolving on a pivot. Little by 



228 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

little his ugly brown side was exposed to view. A white 
smoke sprang out, as it were from the ground ; a sharp 
report came with it. The old bull gave a very undigni- 
fied jump, and galloped off. At this his comrade wheeled 
about with considerable expedition. The other Indian shot 
at him from the ravine, and then both the bulls ran away 
at full speed, while half the juvenile population of the 
village raised a yell and ran after them. The first bull 
soon stopped, and while the crowd stood looking at him 
at a respectful distance he reeled and rolled over on his 
side. The other, wounded in a less vital part, galloped 
away to the hills and escaped. 

In half an hour it was totally dark. I lay down to sleep, 
and ill as I was, there was something very animating in 
the prospect of the general hunt that was to take place 
on the morrow. 




I'lmiMW'i ^"-^>^%Wfc^^ 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 



LONG before daybreak the Indians broke up their camp. 
The women of Mene-Seela's lodge were as usual among 
the first that were ready for departure, and I found the old 
man himself sitting by the embers of the decayed fire, over 
which he was ^^' ng his withered fingers, as the morn- 
ing was chill and ciatnp. The preparations for moving were 
even more confused and disorderly than usual. While some 
families were leaving the ground the lodges of others were 
still standing untouched. At this old Mene-Seela grew im- 
patient, and walking out to the middle of the village, he 
stood with his robe wrapped close around him, and har- 
angued the people in a loud, sharp voice. Now, he said, 
when they were on an enemy's hunting-grounds, was not 
the time to behave like children ; they ought to be more 



230 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

active and united than ever. His speech had some effect. 
The delinquents took down their lodges and loaded their 
pack-horses ; and when the sun rose, the last of the m&h, 
women, and children had left the deserted camp. 

This movement was made merely for the purpose of 
finding a better and safer position. So we advanced only 
three or four miles up the little stream, when each family 
assumed its relative place in the great ring of the village, 
and the squaws set actively at work in preparing the camp. 
But not a single warrior dismounted from his horse. All 
the men that morning were mounted on inferior animals, 
leading their best horses by a cord, or confiding them to 
the care of boys. In small parties they began to leave 
the ground and ride rapidly away over the plains to the 
westward. I had taken no food, and not being at all am- 
bitious of farther abstinence, I went into my host's lodge, 
which his squaws had set up with wonderful despatch, 
and sat down in the centre, as a gentle hint that I was 
hungry. A wooden bowl was soon set before me, filled 
with the nutritious preparation of dried meat called /rw- 
juicaji by the northern voyagers, and zvasna by the Dakota. 
Taking a handful to break my fast upon, I left the lodge 
just in time to see the last band of hunters disappear over 
the ridge of the neighboring hill. I mounted Pauline and 
galloped in pursuit, riding rather by the balance than by 
any muscular strength that remained to me. From the 
top of the hill I could overlook a wide extent of desolate 
prairie, over which, far and near, little parties of naked 
horsemen were rapidly passing. I soon came up to the 
nearest, and we had not ridden a mile before all were 
united into one large and compact body. All was haste 
and eagerness. Each hunter whipped on his horse as if anx- 
ious to be the first to reach the sfame. In such move- 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 23 1 

ments among the Indians this is always more or less the 
case; but it was especially so in the present instance, be- 
cause the head chief of the village was absent, and there 
were but few "soldiers," a sort of Indian police, who among 
their other functions usually assume the direction of a buf- 
falo hunt. No man turned to the right hand or to the left. 
We rode at a swift canter straight forward, up hill and 
down hill, and through the stiff, obstinate growth of the 
endless wild-sage bushes. For an hour and a half the 
same red shoulders, the same long black hair rose and fell 
with the motion of the horses before me. Very little was 
said, though once I observed an old nian severely reprov- 
ing Raymond for having left his rifle behind him, when 
there was some probability of encountering an enemy before 
the day was over. As we galloped across a plain thickly set 
with sage bushes, the foremost riders vanished suddenly 
from sight, as if diving into the earth. The arid soil was 
cracked into a deep ravine. Down we all went in succes- 
sion and galloped in a line along the bottom, until we 
found a point where, one by one, the horses could scram- 
ble out. Soon after, we came upon a wide, shallow stream, 
and as we rode swiftly over the hard sand-beds and through 
the thin sheets of rippling water, many of the savage horse- 
men threw themselves to the ground, knelt on the sand, 
snatched a hasty draught, and leaping back again to their 
seats, galloped on as before. 

Meanwhile scouts kept in advance of the party; and now 
we began to see them on the ridges of the hills, waving 
their robes in token that buffalo were visible. These how- 
ever proved to be nothing more than old straggling bulls, 
feeding upon the neighboring plains, who would stare for a 
moment at the hostile array and then gallop clumsily off. 
At lentrth we could discern several of these scouts mak- 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



ing" their signals to us at once. — no longer waving their 
robes boldly from the top of the hill, but standing lower 
down, so that they could not be seen from the plains be- 
yond. Game worth pursuing had evidently been discov- 
ered. The excited Indians now urged forward their tired 
horses even more rapidly than before. Pauline, who was 
still sick and jaded, began to groan heavily; and her yel- 
low sides were darkened with sweat. As we were crowd- 
ing together over a lower intervening hill, I heard Revnal 
and Raymond shouting to me from the left; and, looking 
in that direction, I saw them riding away behind a party 
of about twenty mean-Uniking Indians. These were the 
relatives of Reynal's squaw, Margot, who, not wishing to 
take part in the general hunt, were riding towards a dis- 
tant hollow, where they saw a small band of buffalo which 
they meant to appropriate to themselves. I answered to 
the call by ordering Raymond to turn back and follow 
me. He reluctantly obeyed, though Reynal. who had re- 
lied on his assistance in skinning, cutting up, and carry- 
ing to camp the buffalo that he and his partv should kill, 
loudly protested, and declared that we should see no sport 
if we went with the rest of the Indians. Followed bv 
Raymond. I pursued the main body of hunters, while 
Revnal, in a great rage, whipped his horse over the hill 
after his ragamuffin relatives. The Indians, still about 
a hundred in number, galloped in a dense body at some 
distance in advance, a cloud of dust flying in the wind 
behind them. I could not overtake them until they had 
stopped on the side of the hill where the scouts were 
standing. Here each hunter sprang in haste from the 
tired animal he had ridden, and leaped upon the fresh 
horse he had brought with him. There was not a saddle 
or a bridle in the whole part}". A piece of buffalo-robe. 



THE HUXTIXG CAxMP 



OJ 




girthed over the horse's back, served in the place of the 
one, and a cord of twisted hair, lashed round his lower 
jaw, answered for the other. Eagle feathers dangled from 
every mane and tail, as marks of courage and speed. As 
for the rider, he wore no other clothing than a liu'ht cine- 



234 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ture at his waist, and a pair of moccasins. He had a heavy 
whip, with a handle of solid elk-horn, and a lash of knotted 
bull-hide fastened to his wrist by a band. His bow was 
in his hand and his c[uiver of otter or panther skin hung 
at his shoulder. Thus equipped, some thirty of the hunters 
galloped away towards the left, in order to make a circuit 
under cover of the hills, that the buffalo might be assailed 
on both sides at once. The rest impatiently waited until 
time enough had elapsed for their companions to reach 
the required position. Then riding upward in a body, we 
gained the ridge of the hill, and for the first time came 
in sight of the buffalo on the i)lain beyond. 

They were a band oi cows, four or five hundred in 
number, crowded together near the bank of a wide stream 
that was soaking across the sand-beds of the valley. This 
valley was a large circular basin, sun-scorched and broken, 
scantily covered with herbage and surrounded with high, 
barren hills, from an opening in which we could see our 
allies galloping out upon the plain. The wind blew from 
that direction. The buffalo, aware of their approach, had 
begun to move, though very slowly and in a compact 
mass. I have no farther recollection of seeing the game 
until we were in the midst of them, for as we rode down 
the hill other objects engrossed my attention. Numerous 
old bulls were scattered over the plain, and ungallantly 
deserting their charge at our approach began to wade and 
plunge through the quicksands of the stream, and gallop 
away towards the hills. One old veteran was straggling 
behind the rest, with one of his fore-legs, which had been 
broken by some accident, dangling about uselessly. His 
appearance, as he went shambling along on three legs, 
was so ludicrous that I could not help pausing for a mo- 
ment to look at him. As I came near he would trv to 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 235 

rush upon me, nearly throwing himself down at every 
awkward attempt. Looking up, I saw the whole body of 
Indians full a hundred yards in advance. I lashed Pauline 
in pursuit, and reached them just in time; for at that 
moment each hunter, as if by a common impulse, violently 
struck his horse, each horse sprang forward, and, scatter- 
ing in the charge in order to assail the entire herd at 
once, we all rushed headlong upon the buffalo. We were 
among them in an instant. Amid the trampling and the 
yells I could see their dark figures running hither and 
thither through clouds of dust, and the horsemen dart- 
ing in pursuit. While we were charging on one side, our 
companions attacked the bewildered and panic-stricken 
herd on the other. The uproar and confusion lasted but 
a moment. The dust cleared away, and the buffalo could 
be seen scattering as from a common centre, flying over 
the plain singly, or in long files and small compact bodies, 
while behind them followed the Indians riding at furious 
speed, and yelling as they launched arrow after arrow into 
their sides. The carcasses were strewn thickly over the 
ground. Here and there stood wounded buffalo, their bleed- 
ing sides feathered with arrows; and as I rode by them 
their eyes would glare, they would bristle like gigantic 
cats, and feebly attempt to rush up and gore my horse. 
Others, less disabled, were feebly staggering away, des- 
tined to the maws of wolves. 

I left camp that morning with a philosophic resolution. 
Neither I nor my horse were at that time fit for such sport, 
and I had determined to remain a quiet spectator; but amid 
the rush of horses and buffalo, the uproar and the dust, I 
found it impossible to sit still ; and as four or five buffalo 
ran past me in a line, I lashed Pauline in pursuit. We 
went plunging through the water and the quicksands, and 



2T,6 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

clambering the bank, chased them through the wild-sage 
bushes that covered the rising ground beyond. But neither 
her native spirit nor the blows of the knotted bull-hide 
could supply the place of poor Pauline's exhausted strength. 
We could not gain an inch upon the fugitives. At last, 
however, they came full upon a ravine too wide to leap 
over; and as this compelled them to turn abruptly to the 
left, I contrived to get within ten or twelve yards of the 
hindmost. At this she faced about, bristled angrily, and 
made a show of charging. I shot at her, and hit her 
in the neck. Down she tumbled into the ravine whither 
her companions had descended before her. I saw their 
dark backs appearing and disappearing as they galloped 
along the bottom; then, one by one, they scrambled out 
on the other side, and ran off as before, the wounded 
animal following with the rest. 

Turning back, I saw Raymond coming on his black 
mule to meet me ; and as we rode over the field to- 
gether, we counted scores of carcasses lying on the plain, 
in the ravines, and on the sandy bed of the stream. Far 
away in the distance, horsemen and buffalo were still 
scouring along, with clouds of dust rising behind them ; 
and over the sides of the hills long files of the frightened 
animals were rapidly ascending. The hunters began to 
return. The boys, who had held the horses behind the 
hill, made their appearance, and the work of flaying and 
cutting up began in earnest all over the field. I noticed 
my host Kongra-Tonga beyond the stream, just alighting 
by the side of a cow which he had killed. Riding up to 
him, I found him in the act of drawing out an arrow, 
which, with the exception of the notch at the end, had 
entirely disappeared in the animal. I asked him to give it 
to me, and I still retain it as a proof, though by no means 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 237 



the most striking one that could be offered, of the force and 
dexterity with which the Indians shoot their arrows. 

The hides and meat were piled upon the horses, and 
the hunters began to leave the ground. Raymond and I, 
too, getting tired of the scene, set out for the village, 
riding straight across the intervening desert. There was 
no path, and as far as I could see, no landmark sufficient 
to guide us; but Raymond seemed to have an instinctive 
perception of the point on the horizon towards which we 
ought to direct our course. Antelope were bounding on 
all sides, and as is always the case in the presence of 
buffalo, they seemed to have lost their natural shyness. 
Bands of them would run lightly up the rocky declivities, 
and stand gazing down upon us from the summit. At 
length we could distinguish the tall white rocks and the 
old pine-trees that, as we well remembered, were just 
above the site of the encampment. Still we could see 
nothing of the camp itself, until, mounting a grassy hill, 
we saw the circle of lodges, dingy with storms and smoke, 
standing on the plain at our feet. 

I entered the lodge of my host. His squaw instantly 
brought me food and water, and spread a buffalo -robe 
for me to lie upon; and being much fatigued I lay down 
and fell asleep. In about an hour the entrance of Kongra- 
Tonga, with his arms smeared with blood to the elbows, 
awoke me; he sat down in his usual seat, on the left side 
of the lodge. His squaw gave him a vessel of water for 
washing, set before him a bowl of boiled meat, and, as he 
was eating, pulled off his bloody moccasins and placed 
fresh ones on his feet ; then outstretching his limbs, my 
host composed himself to sleep. 

And now the hunters, two or three at a time, came 
rapidly in, and each consigning his horses to the squaws. 



238 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

entered his lodge with the air of a man whose day's work 
was done. The squaws flung down the load from the bur- 
dened horses, and vast piles of meat and hides were soon 
gathered before every lodge. By this time it was darkening 
fast, and the whole village was illumined by the glare of 
fires. All the squaws and children were gathered about 
the piles of meat, exploring them in search of the dainti- 
est portions. Some of these they roasted on sticks before 
the fires, but often they dispensed with this superfluous 
operation. Late into the night the fires were still glow- 
ing upon the groups of feasters engaged in this savage 
banquet around them. 

Several hunters sat down by the fire in Kongra-Tonga's 
lodge to talk over the day's exploits. Among the rest, 
Mene-Seela came in. Though he must have seen full 
eighty winters, he had taken an active share in the day's 
sport. He boasted that he had killed two cows that morn- 
ing, and would have killed a third if the dust had not 
blinded him so that he had to drop his bow and arrows and 
press both hands against his eyes to stop the pain. The 
fire-light fell upon his wrinkled face and shrivelled figure as 
he sat telling his story, with such inimitable gesticulation 
that every man in the lodge broke into a laugh. 

Old Mene-Seela was one of the few Indians in the 
village with whom I would have trusted myself alone with- 
out suspicion, and the only one from whom I should have 
received a gift or a service without the certainty that it 
proceeded from an interested motive. He was a great 
friend to the whites. He liked to be in their company, and 
was very vain of the favors he had received from them. 
He told me one afternoon, as we were sitting together in 
his son's lodge, that he considered the beaver and the 
whites the wisest people on earth ; indeed, he was con- 



THE HUNTING CAAIP. 239 

vinced they were the same; and an incident which had 
happened to him long before had assured him of this. 
So he began the following story, and as the pipe passed 
in turn to him, Reynal availed himself of these interrup- 
tions to translate what had preceded. But the old man 
accompanied his words with such admirable pantomime 
that translation was hardly necessary. 

He said that when he ^as very young, and had never 
yet seen a white man, he and three or four of his com- 
panions were out on a beaver hunt, and he crawled into 
a large beaver-lodge, to see what was there. Sometimes 
he crept on his hands and knees, sometimes he was obliged 
to swim, and sometimes to lie flat on his face and drag him- 
self along. In this way he crawled a great distance under 
ground. It was very dark, cold, and close, so that at last 
he was almost suffocated, and fell into a swoon. When he 
began to recover, he could just distinguish the voices of 
his companions outside, who had given him up for lost, and 
were singing his death-song. At first he could see noth- 
ing, but soon discerned something white before him, and 
at length plainly distinguished three people, entirely white, 
one man and two women, sitting at the edge of a black pool 
of water. He became alarmed, and thought it high time 
to retreat. Having succeeded, after great trouble, in reach- 
ing daylight again, he went to the spot 'directly above the 
pool of water where he had seen the three mysterious 
beings. Here he beat a hole with his war-club in the 
ground, and sat down to watch. In a moment the nose of 
an old male beaver appeared at the opening. Mene-Seela 
instantly seized him and dragged him up, when two other 
beavers, both females, thrust out their heads, and these 
he served in the same way. "These," said the old man, 
concluding his story, for which he was probably indebted 



240 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

to a dream, " must have been the three white people whom 
I saw sitting at the edge of the water." 

Mene-Seela was the grand depositary of the legends and 
traditions of the village. I succeeded, however, in getting 
from him only a few fragments. Like all Indians, he was 
excessively superstitious, and continually saw some reason 
for withholding his stories. "It is a bad thing," he would 
say, "to tell the tales in summer. Stay with us till next 
winter, and I will tell you everything I know; but now our 
war-parties are going out, and our young men will be killed 
if I sit down to tell stories before the frost begins." 

But to leave this digression. We remained encamped 
on this spot five days, during three of which the hunters 
were at work incessantly, and immense quantities of meat 
and hides were brought in. Great alarm, however, pre- 
vailed in the village. All were on the alert. The young 
men ranged the country as scouts, and the old men paid 
careful attention to omens and prodigies, and especially to 
their dreams. In order to convey to the enemy (who, if 
they were in the neighborhood, must inevitably have known 
of our presence) the impression that we were constantly on 
the watch, piles of sticks and stones were erected on all 
the surrounding hills, in such a manner as to appear at a 
distance like sentinels. Often, even to this hour, that 
scene will rise before my mind like a visible reality, — , 
the tall white rocks; the old pine-trees on their summits;. 
the sandy stream that ran along their bases and half en- 
circled the village; and the wild-sage bushes, with their 
dull green hue and their medicinal odor, that covered all 
the neighboring declivities. Hour after hour the squaws 
would pass and repass with their vessels of water between 
the stream and the lodges. For the most part, no one was 
to be seen in the camp but women and children, two or 

• 



THE HUNTING CAMP. . 241 

three superannuated old men, and a few lazy and worth- 
less young ones. These, together with the dogs, now 
grown fat and good-natured with the abundance in the 
camp, were its only tenants. Still it presented a busy 
and bustling scene. In all quarters the meat, hung on 
cords of hide, was drying in the sun, and around the 
lodges the squaws, young and old, were laboring on the 
fresh hides stretched upon the ground, scraping the hair 
from one side and the still adhering flesh from the other, 
and rubbing into them the brains of the buffalo, in order 
to render them soft and pliant. 

In mercy to myself and my horse I did not go out with 
the hunters after the first day. Of late, however, I had 
been gaining strength rapidly, as was always the case 
upon every respite of my disorder. I was soon able to 
walk with ease. Raymond and I would go out upon the 
neighboring prairies to shoot antelope, or sometimes to 
assail straggling buffalo, on foot; an attempt in which we 
met with rather indifferent success. As I came out of 
Kongra-Tonga's lodge one morning, Reynal called to me 
from the opposite side of the village, and asked me over 
to breakfast. The breakfast was a substantial one. It 
consisted of the rich, juicy hump-ribs of a fat cow; a re- 
past unrivalled in its way. It was roasting before the fire, 
impaled upon a stout stick, which Reynal took up and 
planted in the ground before his lodge, when he, with 
Raymond and myself, taking our seats around it, un- 
sheathed our knives and assailed it with good will. In 
spite of all medical experience, this solid fare, without 
bread or salt, seemed to agree with me admirably. 

"We shall have strangers here before night," said 
Reynal. 

" How do you know that.-* " I asked. 

16 



242 , THE OREGON TRAIL. 

" I dreamed so. I am as good at dreaming as an Indian. 
There's the Hail-Storm; he dreamed the same thing, and 
he and his crony, the Rabbit, have gone out on discovery." 

I laughed at Reynal for his credulity, went over to my 
host's lodge, took down my rifle, walked out a mile or two 
on the prairie, saw an old bull standing alone, crawled up 
a ravine, shot him, and saw him escape. Then, exhausted 
and rather ill-humored, I walked back to the village. By 
a strange coincidence, Reynal's prediction had been veri- 
fied; for the first persons whom I saw were the two trap- 
pers. Rouleau and Saraphin, coming to meet me. These 
men, as the reader may possibly recollect, had left our party 
about a fortnight before. They had been trapping among 
the Black Hills, and were now on their way to the Rocky 
Mountains, intending in a day or two to set out for the 
neighboring Medicine Bow. They were not the most ele- 
gant or refined of companions, yet they made a very wel- 
come addition to the limited society of the village. For 
the rest of that day we lay smoking and talking in Rey- 
nal's lodge. This indeed was no better than a hut, made 
of hides stretched on poles, and entirely open in front. 
It was well carpeted with soft buffalo-robes, and here we 
remained, sheltered from the sun, surrounded by the domes- 
tic utensils of Madame Margot's household. All was quiet 
in the village. Though the hunters had not gone out that 
day, they lay sleeping in their lodges, and most of the 
women were silently engaged in their heavy tasks. A few 
young men were playing at a lazy game of ball in the area 
of the village; and when they became tired, some girls 
supplied their place with a more boisterous sport. At a 
little distance, among the lodges, some children and half- 
grown squaws were playfully tossing one of their number 
in a buffalo-robe, an exact counterpart of the ancient pas- 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 



243 




time from which Sancho Panza suffered so much. Farther 
out on the prairie, a host of little naked boys were roaming 
about, engaged in various rough games, or pursuing birds 
and ground-squirrels with their bows and arrows; and woe 
to the unhappy little animals that fell into their merci- 
less, torture-loving hands. A squaw from the next lodge, 
a notable housewife, named Weah Wash- 
tay, or the Good Woman, brought us a 
large bowl of wasna, and went into an 
ecstasy of delight when I presented her 
with a green glass ring, such as I usually 
wore with a view to similar occasions. 

The sun went down, and half the sky 
was glowing fiery red, reflected on the 
little stream as it wound away among the 
sage-bushes. Some young men left the 
village, and soon returned, driving in 
before them all the horses, hundreds 
in number, and of every size, age, and color. The hun- 
ters came out and each securing those that belonged to 
him, examined their condition, and tied them fast by 
long cords to stakes driven in front of his lodge. It was 
half an hour before the bustle subsided and tranquillity 
was restored again. By this time it was nearly dark. 
Kettles were hung over the fires, around which the squaws 
were gathered with their children, laughing and talking 
merrily. A circle of a different kind was formed in the 
centre of the village. This was composed of the old men 
and warriors of repute, who sat together with their white 
buffalo-robes drawn close around their shoulders; and as 
the pipe passed from hand to hand, their conversation had 
not a particle of the gravity and reserve usually ascribed 
to Indians. I sat down with them as usual. I had in my 



244 THE OREGON TRAIL. 



hand half a dozen squibs and serpents, which I had made 
one day when encamped upon Laramie Creek, with gun- 
powder and charcoal, and the leaves of "Fremont's Expe- 
dition," rolled round a stout lead-pencil. I waited till I 
could get hold of the large piece of burning bois-dc-vachc 
which the Indians kept by them on the ground for light- 
ing their pipes. With this I lighted all the fireworks at 
once, and tossed them whizzing and sputtering into the 
air, over the heads of the company. They all jumped up 
and ran off with yelps of astonishment and consternation. 
After a moment or two they ventured to come back one 
by one, and some of the boldest, picking up the cases of 
burnt paper, examined them with eager curiosity to dis- 
cover their mysterious secret. From that time forward I 
enjoyed great repute as a "fire-medicine." 

The camp was filled with the low hum of cheerful voices. 
There were other sounds, however, of , a different kind; for 
from a large lodge, lighted up like a gigantic lantern by 
the blazing fire within, came a chorus of dismal cries and 
wailings, long drawn out, like the howling of wolves, and 
a woman almost naked, was crouching close outside, cry- 
ing violently, and gashing her legs with a knife till they 
were covered with blood. Just a year before, a young man 
belonging to this family had been slain by the enemy, and 
his relatives were thus lamenting his loss. Still other 
sounds might be heard; loud earnest cries often repeated 
from amid the gloom, at a distance beyond the village. 
They proceeded from some young men, who, being about 
to set out in a few days on a war-party, were standing at 
the top of a hill, calling on the Great Spirit to aid them 
in their enterprise. While I was listening Rouleau, with 
a laugh on his careless face, called to me and directed 
my attention to another quarter. In front of the lodge 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 



245 



where Weah Washtay lived, another squaw was standing, 
angrily scolding an old yellow dog, who lay on the ground 
with his nose resting between his paws, and his eyes 
turned sleepily up to her face, as if pretending to give 



^\ 





respectful attention, but resolved to fall asleep as soon 
as it was all over. 

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" said the old 
woman. "I have fed yo'u well, and taken care of you ever 
since you were small and blind, and could only crawl 
about and squeal a little, instead of howling as you do 
now. When you grew old I said you were a good dog. 



246 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

You were strong and gentle when the load was put on 
your back, and you never ran among the feet of the 
horses when we were all travelling together over the 
prairie. But you had a bad heart ! Whenever a rabbit 
jumped out of the bushes you were always the first to 
run after him and lead away all the other dogs behind 
you. You ought to have known that it was very danger- 
ous to act so. When you had got far out on the prairie, 
and no one was near to help you, perhaps a wolf would 
jump out of the ravine; and then what could you do.-* 
You would certainly have been killed, for no dog can 
fight well with a load on his back. Only three days ago 
you ran off in that way, and turned over the bag of 
wooden pins with which I used to fasten up the front of 
the lodge. Look up there, and you will see that it is 
all flapping open. And now to-night you have stolen a 
great piece of fat meat which was roasting before the fire 
for my children. I tell you, you have a bad heart, and 
you must die ! " 

So saying, the squaw went into the lodge, and coming 
out with a large stone mallet, killed the unfortunate dog 
at one blow. This speech is worthy of notice, as illus- 
trating a curious characteristic of the Indians, who as- 
cribe intelligence and a power of understanding speech 
to the inferior animals; to whom, indeed, according to 
many of their traditions, they are linked in close affinity ; 
and they even claim the honor of a lineal descent from 
bears, wolves, deer, or tortoises. 

As it grew late, I walked across the village to the lodge 
of my host, Kongra-Tonga. As I entered I saw him, by 
the blaze of the fire in the middle, reclining half asleep 
in his usual place. His couch was by no means an un- 
comfortable one. It consisted of buffalo-robes, laid to- 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 247 



gether on the ground, and a pillow made of whitened 
deer-skin, stuffed with feathers and ornamented with beads. 
At his back was a light frame-work of poles and slender 
reeds, against which he could lean with ease when in a 
sitting posture; and at the top of it, just above his head, 
hung his bow and quiver. His squaw, a laughing, broad- 
faced woman, apparently had not yet completed her domes- 
tic arrangements, for she was bustling about the lodge, 
pulling over the utensils and the bales of dried meat that 
were ranged carefully around it. Unhappily, she and her 
partner were not the only tenants of the dwelling; for half 
a dozen children were scattered about, sleeping in every 
imaginable posture. My saddle was in its place at the head 
of the lodge, and a buffalo-robe was spread on the ground 
before it. Wrapping myself in my blanket, I lay down ; 
but had I not been extremely fatigued, the noise in the 
next lodge would have prevented my sleeping. There was 
the monotonous thumping of the Indian drum, mixed with 
occasional sharp yells, and a chorus chanted by twenty 
voices. A grand scene of gambling was going forward, 
with all the appropriate formalities. The players were 
staking on the chances of the game, their ornaments, their 
horses, and as the excitement rose, their garments, and 
even their weapons; for desperate gambling is not con- 
fined to the hells of Paris. The men of the plains and 
forests no less resort to it as a relief to the tedious 
monotony of their lives, which alternate between fierce 
excitement and listless inaction. I fell asleep with the 
dull notes of the drum still sounding on my ear; but 
these orgies lasted without intermission till daylight. I 
was soon awakened by one of the children crawling over 
me, while another larger one was tugging at my blanket 
and nestling himself in a very disagreeable proximity. I 



248 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

immediately repelled these advances by punching the heads 
of these miniature savages with a short stick which I 
always kept by me for the purpose ; and as sleeping half 
the day and eating much more than is good for them 
makes them extremely restless, this operation usually had 
to be repeated four or five times in the course of the 
night. My host himself was the author of another for- 
midable annoyance. All these Indians, and he among the 
rest, think themselves bound to the constant performance 
of certain acts as the condition on which their success in 
life depends, whether in war, love, hunting, or any other 
employment. These "medicines," as they are called, which 
are usually communicated in dreams, are often absurd 
enough. Some Indians will strike the butt of the pipe 
against the ground every time they smoke; others will 
insist that everything they say shall be interpreted by 
contraries ; and Shaw once met an old man who conceived 
that all would be lost unless he compelled every white 
man he met to drink a bowl of cold water. My host was 
particularly unfortunate in his allotment. The spirits had 
told him in a dream that he must sing a certain song in 
the middle of every night ; and regularly at about twelve 
o'clock his dismal monotonous chanting would awaken 
me, and I would see him seated bolt upright on his 
couch, going through his dolorous performance with a 
most business-like air. There were other voices of the 
night, still more inharmonious. Twice or thrice, between 
sunset and dawn, all the dogs in the village, and there 
were hundreds of them, would bay and yelp in chorus ; a 
horrible clamor, resembling no sound that I have ever 
heard, except perhaps the frightful howling of wolves that 
we used sometimes to hear, long afterward, when descend- 
ing the Arkansas on the trail of General Kearney's army. 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 249 

This canine uproar is, if possible, more discordant than that 
of the wolves. Heard at a distance slowly rising on the 
night, it has a strange, unearthly effect, and would fear- 
fully haunt the dreams of a nervous man ; but when you 
are sleeping in the midst of it the din is outrageous. 
One long, loud howl begins it, and voice after voice 
takes up the sound, till it passes around the whole 
circumference of the village, and the air is filled with 
confused and discordant cries, at once fierce and mourn- 
ful. It lasts a few moments, and then dies away into 
silence. 

Morning came, and Kongra-Tonga, mounting his horse, 
rode out with the hunters. It may not be amiss to glance 
at him for an instant in his character of husband and 
father. Both he and his squaw, like most other Indians, 
were very fond of their children, whom they indulged to 
excess, and never punished, except in extreme cases, when 
they would throw a bowl of cold water over them. Their 
offspring became sufficiently undutiful and disobedient 
under this system of education, which tends not a little 
to foster that wild idea of liberty and utter intolerance 
of restraint which lie at the foundation of the Indian 
character. It would be hard to find a fonder father than 
Kongra-Tonga. There was one urchin in particular, rather 
less than two feet high, to whom he was exceedingly at- 
tached; and sometimes spreading a buffalo-robe in the lodge, 
he would seat himself upon it, place his small favorite up- 
right before him and chant in a low tone some of the 
words used as an accompaniment to the war-dance. The 
little fellow, who could just manage to balance himself 
by stretching out both arms, would lift his feet and turn 
slowly round and round in time to his father's music, while 
my host would laugh with delight, and look smiling up into 



250 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



my face to see if I were admiring this precocious perform- 
ance of his offspring. In his capacity of husband he was 
less tender. The squaw who lived in the lodge with him 
had been his partner for many years. She took good care 
of his children and his household concerns. He liked her 




well enough, and as far as I could see, they never quarrelled ; 
but his warmer affections were reserved for younger and 
more recent favorites. Of these he had at present only 
one, who lived in a lodge apart from his own. One day 
while in this camp, he became displeased with her, pushed 
her out, threw after her her ornaments, dresses, and every- 
thing she had, and told her to go home to her father. Having 
consummated this summary divorce, for which he could show 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 25 1 



good reasons, he came back, seated himself in his usual 
place, and began to smoke with an air of the utmost tran- 
quillity and self-satisfaction. 

I was sitting in the lodge with him on that very after- 
noon, when I felt some curiosity to learn the history of 
the numerous scars that appeared on his naked body 
Of some of them, however, I did not venture to inquire, 
for I already understood their origin. Each of his arms 
was marked as if deeply gashed with a knife at regular 
intervals, and there were other scars also, of a different 
character, on his back and on either breast. They were 
the traces of the tortures which these Indians, in common 
with a few other tribes, inflict upon themselves at certain 
seasons ; in part, it may be, to gain the glory of courage 
and endurance, but chiefly as an act of self-sacrifice to 
secure the favor of the spirits. The scars upon the breast 
and back were produced by running through the flesh strong 
splints of wood, to which heavy buffalo-skulls are fastened 
by cords of hide, and the wretch runs forward with all his 
strength, assisted by two companions, who take hold of 
each arm, until the flesh tears apart and the skulls are 
left behind. Others of Kongra-Tonga's scars were the 
result of accidents ; but he had many received in war. 
He was one of the most noted warriors in the village. In 
the course of his life he had slain, as he boasted to me, 
fourteen men; and though, like other Indians, he was a 
braggart and liar, yet in this statement common report 
bore him out. Being flattered by my inquiries, he told 
me tale after tale, true or false, of his warlike exploits; 
and there was one among the rest illustrating the worst 
features of Indian character too well for me to omit it. 
Pointing out of the opening of the lodge towards the 
Medicine Bow Mountain, not manv miles distant, he said 



252 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

that he was there a few summers ago with a war-party of 
his young men. Here they found two Snake Indians hunt- 
ing. They shot one of them with arrows, and chased the 
other up the side of the mountain till they surrounded 
him, and Kongra-Tonga himself, jumping forward among 
the trees, seized him by the arm. Two of his young men 
then ran up and held him fast while he scalped him alive. 
They then built a great fire, and cutting the tendons of 
their captive's wrists and feet, threw him in, and held 
him down with long poles until he was burnt to death. 
He garnished his story with descriptive particulars much 
too revolting to mention. His features were remarkably 
mild and open, without the fierceness of expression com- 
mon among these Indians ; and as he detailed these devilish 
cruelties, he looked up into my face with the air of earnest 
simplicity which a little child would wear in relating to 
its mother some anecdote of its youthful experience. 

Old Mene-Seela's lodge could offer another illustration 
of the ferocity of Indian warfare. A bright-eyed, active 
little boy was living there who had belonged to a vil- 
lage of the Gros- Ventre Blackfeet, a small but bloody and 
treacherous band, in close alliance with the Arapahoes. 
About a year before, Kongra-Tonga and a party of warriors 
had found about twenty lodges of these Indians upon the 
plains a little to the eastward of our present camp; and 
surrounding them in the night, they butchered men, women, 
and children, preserving only this little boy alive. He was 
adopted into the old man's family, and was now fast be- 
coming identified with the Ogillallah children, among whom 
he mingled on equal terms. There was also a Crow warrior 
in the village, a man of gigantic stature and most symmetri- 
cal proportions. Having been taken prisoner many years 
before and adopted by a squaw in place of a son whom she 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 253 

had lost, he had forgotten his old nationality, and was now 
both in act and inclination an Ogillallah. 

It will be remembered that the scheme of the grand 
war-party against the Snake and Crow Indians originated 
in this village; and though this plan had fallen to the 
ground, the embers of martial ardor continued to glow. 
Eleven young men had prepared to go out against the 
enemy, and the fourth day of our stay in this camp was 
fixed upon for their departure. At the head of this party 
was a well-built, active little Indian, called the White 
Shield, whom I had always noticed for the neatness of his 
dress and appearance. Kis lodge too, though not a large 
one, was the best in the village, his squaw was one of the 
prettiest, and altogether his dwelling was the model of an 
Ogillallah domestic establishment. I was often a visitor 
there, for the White Shield, being rather partial to 
white men, used to invite me to continual feasts at all 
hours of the day. Once, when the substantial part of the 
entertainment was over, and he and I were seated cross- 
legged on a buffalo-robe smoking together very amicably, 
he took down his warlike equipments, which were hang- 
ing round the lodge, and displayed them with great pride 
and self-importance. Among the rest was a superb head- 
dress of feathers. Taking this from its case, he put it on 
and stood before me, perfectly conscious of the gallant air 
which it gave to his dark face and his vigorous, graceful 
figure. He told me that upon it were the feathers of 
three war-eagles, equal in value to the same number of 
good horses. He took up also a shield gayly painted and 
hung with feathers. The effect of these barbaric orna- 
ments was admirable. His quiver was made of the spotted 
skin of a small panther, common among the Black Hills, 
from which the tail and distended claws were still allowed 



254 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

to hang. The White Shield concluded his entertainment 
in a manner characteristic of an Indian. He begged of 
me a little powder and ball, for he had a gun as well as 
a bow and arrows ; but this I was obliged to refuse, be- 
cause I had scarcely enough for my own use. Making 
him however a parting present of a paper of vermilion, I 
left him quite contented. 

On the next morning the White Shield took cold, and 
was attacked with an inflammation of the throat. Immedi- 
ately he seemed to lose all spirit, and though before no 
warrior in the village had borne himself more proudly, he 
now moped about from lodge to lodge with a forlorn and 
dejected air. At length he sat down, close wrapped in 
his robe, before the lodge of Reynal, but when he found 
that neither he nor I knew how to relieve him, he arose 
and stalked over to one of the medicine-men of the village. 
This old imposter thumped him for some time with both 
fists, howled and yelped over him, and beat a drum close 
to his ear to expel the evil spirit. This treatment failing 
of the desired effect, the White Shield withdrew to his 
own lodge, where he lay disconsolate for some hours. 
Making his appearance once more in the afternoon, he 
again took his seat on the ground before Reynal's lodge, 
holding his throat with his hand. For some time he sat 
silent, with his eyes fixed mournfully on the ground. At 
last he began to speak in a low tone. 

"I am a brave man," he said; "all the young men think 
me a great warrior and ten of them are ready to go with 
me to the war. I will go and show them the enemy. Last 
summer the Snakes killed my brother. I cannot live un- 
less I revenge his death. To-morrow we will set out and 
I will take their scalps." 

The White Shield, as he expressed this resolution. 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 



255 



seemed to have lost all the accustomed fire and spirit of 
his look, and hung his head as if in a fit of despondency. 

As I was sitting that 
evening at one of the 
fires, I saw him arrayed 
in his splendid war- 
dress, his cheeks 
painted with vermilion, 
leading his favorite 
war-horse to the front 
o f h i s lodge. H e 
mounted and rode 
round the village, 
singing his war-song 
in a loud, hoarse voice 
amid the shrill accla- 
mations of the wo- 
men. Then d i s- 
mounting, he re 
mained for some 
minutes prostrate 
upon the ground, 
as if in an act 
of supplication. 
On the follow- 
ing morning I 
looked in 
vain for the 
departure of 
the warriors. 

All was quiet in the village until late in the forenoon, 
when the White Shield came and seated himself in his 
old place before us. Reynal asked him why he had not 
gone out to find the enemy. 




\u^"" 



256 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

" I cannot go," he answered in a dejected voice. " I have 
given my war-arrows to the Meneaska " (the American). 

"You have only given him two of your arrows," said 
Reynal. "If you ask him he will give them back again." 

For some time the White Shield said nothing. At last 
he spoke in a gloomy tone, — 

" One of my young men has had bad dreams. The spirits 
of the dead came and threw stones at him in his sleep." 

If such a dream had actually taken place it might have 
broken up this or any other war-party, but both Reynal 
and I were convinced at the time that it was a mere fabri- 
cation to excuse his remaining at home. 

The White Shield was a warrior of noted prowess. Very 
probably he would have received a mortal wound without 
the show of pain, and endured without flinching the worst 
tortures that an enemy could inflict upon him. The whole 
power of an Indian's nature would be summoned to en- 
counter such a trial ; every influence of his education from 
childhood would have prepared him for it; the cause of 
his suffering would have been visibly and palpably before 
him, and his spirit would rise to set his enemy at defiance, 
and gain the highest glory of a warrior by meeting death 
with fortitude. But when he feels himself attacked by a 
mysterious evil, before whose assaults his manhood is 
wasted, and his strength drained away, when he can see 
no enemy to resist and defy, the boldest warrior falls 
prostrate at once. He believes that a bad spirit has taken 
possession of him, or that he is the victim of some charm. 
Wlien suffering from a protracted disorder, an Indian will 
often abandon himself to his supposed destiny, pine away 
and die, tlie victim of his own imagination. The same 
effect will often follow a series of calamities, or a long 
run of ill-luck, and Indians have been known to ride into 



THE HUNTING CAMP. 



257 



the midst of an enemy's camp, or attack a grizzly bear 
single-handed, to get rid of a life supposed to lie under 
the doom of fate. 

Thus, after all his fasting, dreaming, and calling upon 
the Great Spirit, the White Shield's war-party came to 
nou£:ht. 



!///]>'. 




17 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE TRAPPERS. 



IN speaking of the Indians, I have ahnost forgotten two 
bold adventurers of another race^ the trappers Rouleau 
and Saraphin. These men were bent on a hazardous enter- 
prise. They were on their way to the country ranged by 
the Arapahoes, a day's journey west of our camp. These 
Arapahoes, of whom Shaw and I afterwards fell in with a 
large number, are ferocious savages, who of late had de- 
clared themselves enemies to the whites, and threatened 
death to the first who should venture within their terri- 
'tory. The occasion of the declaration was as follows: — 
In the preceding spring, 1845, Colonel Kearney left Fort 
Leavenworth with several companies of dragoons, marched 
to Fort Laramie, passed along the foot of the mountains to 
Bent's Fort, and then, turning eastward again, returned to 
the point whence he set out. While at Fort Laramie, he 
sent a part of his command as far westward as Sweetwater, 
while he himself remained at the fort, and despatched mes- 
sages to the surrounding Indians to meet him there in coun- 
cil. Then for the first time the tribes of that vicinity saw 
the white warriors, and, as might have been expected, they 
were lost in astonishment at their regular order, their gay 
attire, the completeness of their martial equipment, and 
the size and strength of their horses. Among the rest, 
the Arapahoes came in considerable numbers to the Fort. 
They had lately committed numerous murders, and Colonel 



THE TRAPPERS. 



259 



Kearney threatened that if they killed any more white men 
he would turn loose his dragoons upon them and annihilate 
their nation. In the evening, to add effect to his speech, 
he ordered a howitzer to be fired and a rocket to be thrown 
up. Many of the Arapahoes fell flat on the ground, while 
others ran away screaming with amazement and 
terror. On the following day they withdrew 
to their mountains, confounded at the appear- 
ance of the dragoons, at their big gun 
which went off twice at one shot ^^^ 
and the fiery messenger which 
they had sent up to the 



Great Spirit. For 
many months they 
quiet, and did 




remained 
no farther 
l|r ■**" "^ At length, just 
'^ «7 we came into the 
^^^^ country, one of them, ' 
by an act of the basest 
:reachery, killed two white 
men. Boot and May, who were 
trapping among the mountains, 
or this act it was impossible to dis- 
- a motive. It seemed to spring from 
those inexplicable impulses which 
often possess Indians, and which appear to be 
mere outbreaks of native ferocity. No sooner was the mur- 
der committed than the whole tribe were in consternation. 
They expected every day that the avenging dragoons would 
come, little thinking that a desert of nine hundred miles 
lay between them and their enemy. A large deputa- 
tion of them came to Fort Laramie, bringing a valuable 
present of horses, in atonement. These Bordeaux refused 



260 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

to accept. They then asked if he would be satisfied with 
their delivering up the murderer himself; but he declined 
this offer also. The Arapahoes went back more terrified 
than ever. Weeks passed away, and still no dragoons ap- 
peared. A result followed which those best acquainted 
with Indians had predicted. They imagined that fear had 
prevented Bordeaux from accepting their gifts, and that 
they had nothing to apprehend from the vengeance of the 
whites. From terror they rose to the height of insolence. 
They called the white men cowards and old women; and a 
friendly Dakota came to Fort Laramie with the report that 
they were determined to kill the first white dog they could 
lay hands on. 

Had a military officer, with suitable powers, been sta- 
tioned at Fort Laramie; had he accepted the offer of the 
Arapahoes to deliver up the murderer, and ordered him to 
be led out and shot, in presence of his tribe, they would 
have been awed into tranquillity, and much danger averted; 
but now the neighborhood of the Medicine-Bow Mountain 
was perilous in the extreme. Old Mene-Seela, a true friend 
of the whites, and many other of the Indians, gathered about 
the two trappers, and vainly endeavored to turn them from 
their purpose; but Rouleau and Saraphin only laughed at 
the danger. On the morning preceding that on which they 
were to leave the camp, we could all see faint white col- 
umns of smoke rising against the dark base of the Medi- 
cine Bow. Scouts were sent out immediately, and reported 
that these proceeded from an Arapahoe camp, abandoned 
only a few hours before. Still the two trappers continued 
their prejxirations for departure. 

Saraphin was a tall, powerful fellow, with a sullen and 
sinister countenance. His rifle had very probably drawn 
other blood than that of buffalo or Indians. Rouleau had 



THE TRAPPERS. 261 



a broad, ruddy face, marked with as few traces of thought 
or care as a child's. His figure was square and strong, 
but the first joints of both his feet were frozen off, and 
his horse had lately thrown and trampled upon him, by 
which he had been severely injured in the chest. But 
nothing could subdue his gayety. He went all day roll- 
ing about the camp on his stumps of feet, talking, singing, 
and frolicking with the Indian women. Rouleau had an 
unlucky partiality for squaws. He always had one, whom 
he must needs bedizen with beads, ribbons, and all the 
finery of an Indian wardrobe; and though he was obliged 
to leave her behind him during his expeditions, this haz- 
ardous necessity did not at all trouble him, for his dispo- 
sition was the reverse of jealous. If at any time he had 
not lavished the whole of the precarious profits of his voca- 
tion upon his dark favorite, he devoted the rest to feasting 
his comrades. If liquor was not to be had — and this was 
usually the case — strong coffee would be substituted. As 
the men of that region are by no means remarkable for 
providence or self-restraint, whatever was set before them 
on these occasions, however extravagant in price or enor- 
mous in quantity, was sure to be disposed of at one sit- 
ting. Like other trappers, Rouleau's life was one of 
contrast and variety. It was only' at certain seasons, and 
for a limited time, that he was absent on his expeditions. 
For the rest of the year he would lounge about the fort, or 
encamp with his friends in its vicinity, hunting, or enjoy- 
ing all the luxury of inaction; but when once in pursuit 
of the beaver, he was involved in extreme privations and 
perils. Hand and foot, eye and ear must be always alert. 
Frequently he must content himself with devouring his 
evening meal uncooked, lest the light of his fire should 
attract the eyes of some wandering Indian ; and some- 



262 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



times, having made his rude repast, he must leave his fire 
still blazing, and withdraw to a distance under cover of 
the darkness, that his disappointed enemy, drawn thither 
by the light, may find his victim gone, and be unable to 
trace his footsteps in the gloom. This is the life led by 

scores of men among 
the Rocky Mountains. 
I once met a trapper 
whose breast was 
marked with the scars 
of six bullets and ar- 
rows, one of his arms 
broken by a shot, and 
one of his knees shat- 
tered ; yet still, with the 
mettle of New England, 
whence he had come, 
he continued to follow 
his perilous calling. 
On the last day of our 
stay in this camp the trappers 
were ready for departure. When in 
the Black Hills they had caught seven beavers, 
and they now left their skins in charge of Reynal, to 
be kept until their return. Their strong, gaunt horses 
were equipped with rusty Spanish bits, and rude Mexican 
saddles, to which wooden stirrups were attached, while a 
buffalo-robe was rolled up behind, and a bundle of beaver- 
traps slung at the pommel. These, together with their 
rifles, knives, powder-horns and bullet-pouches, flint and 
steel, and a tin cup, composed their whole travelling equip- 
ment. They shook hands with us, and rode away; Sara- 
phin, with his grim countenance, was in advance ; but 




THE TRAPPERS. 263 



Rouleau, clambering gayly into his seat, kicked his horse's 
sides, flourished his whip, and trotted briskly over the 
prairie, trolling forth a Canadian song at the top of his 
voice. Reynal looked after them, with his face of brutal 
selfishness. 

"Well," he said, "if they are killed, I shall have 
the beaver. They '11 fetch me fifty dollars at the fort, 
anyhow." 

This was the last I saw of them. 

We had been five days in the hunting-camp, and the 
meat, which all this time had hung drying in the sun, 
was now fit for transportation. Buffalo-hides also had 
been procured in sufficient quantities for making the next 
season's lodges; but it remained to provide the long poles 
on which they were to be supported. These were only to 
be had among the tall pine woods of the Black Hills, 
and in that direction therefore our next move was to be 
made. Amid the general abundance which during this 
time had prevailed in the camp, there were no instances 
of individual privation, for although the hide and the 
tongue of the buffalo belong by exclusive right to the 
hunter who has killed it, yet any one else is equally 
entitled to help himself from the rest of the carcass. 
Thus the weak, the aged, and even the indolent come in 
for a share of the spoils, and many a helpless old woman, 
who would otherwise perish from starvation, is sustained 
in abundance. 

On the twenty-fifth of July, late in the afternoon, the 
camp broke up, with the usual tumult and confusion, and 
we all moved once more, on horseback and on foot, over 
the plains. We advanced, however, but a few miles. The 
old men, who during the whole march had been stoutly 
striding along on foot in front of the people, now seated 



264 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

themselves in a circle on the ground, while the families, 
erecting their lodges in the prescribed order around them, 
formed the usual great circle of the camp; meanwhile these 
village patriarchs sat smoking and talking. I threw my 
bridle to Raymond, and sat down as usual along with them. 
There was none of that reserve and apparent dignity which 
an Indian always assumes when in council, or in the pres- 
ence of white men whom he distrusts. The party, on the 
contrary, was an extremely merry one, and as in a social 
circle of a quite different character, " if there was not much 
wit, there was at least a great deal of laughter." 

When the first pipe was smoked out, I rose and withdrew 
to the lodge of my host. Here I was stooping, in the act 
of taking off my powder-horn and bullet-pouch, when sud- 
denly, and close at hand, pealing loud and shrill, and in 
right good earnest, came the terrific yell of the war-whoop. 
Kongra-Tonga's squaw snatched up her youngest child and 
ran out of the lodge. I followed, and found the whole vil- 
lage in confusion, resounding with cries and yells. The 
circle of old men in the centre had vanished. The war- 
riors, with glittering eyes, came darting, weapons in hand, 
out of the low openings of the lodges, and running with 
wild yells towards the farther end of the village. Advanc- 
ing a few rods in that direction, I saw a crowd in furious 
agitation. Just then I distinguished the voices of Ray- 
mond and Reynal, shouting to me from a distance, and 
looking back, I saw the latter with his rifle in his hand, 
standing on the farther bank of a little stream that ran 
along the outskirts of the camp. He was calling to Ray- 
mond and me to come over and join him, and Raymond, 
with his usual deliberate gait and stolid countenance, was 
already moving in that direction. 

This was clearly the wisest course, unless we wished to 



THE TRAPPERS. 265 



involve ourselves in the fray; so I turned to go, but just 
then a pair of eyes, gleaming like a snake's, and an aged 
familiar countenance was thrust from the opening of a 
neighboring lodge, and out bolted old Mene-Seela, full of 
fight, clutching his bow and arrows in one hand and his 
knife in the other. At that instant he tripped and fell 
sprawling on his face, while his weapons flew scattering 
in every direction. The women with loud screams were 
hurrying with their children in their arms to place them 
out of danger, and I observed some hastening to prevent 
mischief by carrying away all the weapons they could lay 
hands on. On a rising ground close to the camp stood a 
line of old women singing a medicine-song to allay the 
tumult. As I approached the side of the brook, I heard 
gun-shots behind me, and turning back saw that the crowd 
had separated into two long lines of naked warriors con- 
fronting each other at a respectful distance, and yelling 
and jumping about to dodge the shot of their adversaries, 
while they discharged bullets and arrows against each 
other. At the same time certain sharp, humming sounds 
in the air over my head, like the flight of beetles on a 
summer evening, warned me that the danger was not 
wholly confined to the immediate scene of the fray. So, 
wading through the brook, I joined Reynal and Raymond, 
and we sat down on the grass, in the posture of an armed 
neutrality, to watch the result. 

Happily it may be for ourselves, though contrary to our 
expectation, the disturbance was quelled almost as soon 
as it began. When I looked again, the combatants were 
once more mingled together in a mass. Though yells 
sounded occasionally from the throng, the firing- had en- 
tirely ceased, and I observed five or six persons moving 
busily about, as if acting the part of peace-makers. One of 



266 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the village heralds or criers proclaimed in a loud voice some- 
thing which my two companions were too much engrossed 
in their own observations to translate for me. The crowd 
began to disperse, though many a deep-set black eye still 
glittered with an unnatural lustre, as the warriors slowly 
withdrew to their lodges. This fortunate suppression of 
the disturbance was owing to a few of the old men, less 
pugnacious than Mene-Seela, who boldly ran in between 
the combatants, and aided by some of the "soldiers," or 
Indian police, succeeded in effecting their object. 

It seemed very strange to me that although many arrows 
and bullets were discharged, no one was mortally hurt, and 
I could only account for this by the fact that both the 
marksman and the object of his aim were leaping about 
incessantly. By far the greater part of the villagers had 
joined in the fray, for although there were not more than 
a dozen guns in the whole camp, I heard at least eight or 
ten shots fired. 

In a quarter of an hour all was comparatively quiet. A 
group of warriors was again seated in the middle of the 
village, but this time I did not venture to join them, be- 
cause I could see that the pipe, contrary to the usual order, 
was passing from the left hand to the right around the 
circle; a sure sign that a "medicine-smoke" of reconcilia- 
tion was going forward, and that a white man would be 
an intruder. When I again entered the still agitated 
camp it was nearly dark, and mournful cries, howls, and 
wailings resounded from many female voices. Whether 
these had any connection with the late disturbance, or 
were merely lamentations for relatives slain in some for- 
mer war expeditions, I could not distinctly ascertain. 

To inquire too closely into the cause of the quarrel was 
by no means prudent, and it was not until some time after 



THE TRAPPERS. 267 



that I discovered what had given rise to it. Among the 
Dakota there are many associations or fraternities, super- 
stitious, warlike, or social. Among them was one called 
"The Arrow-Breakers," now in great measure disbanded 
and dispersed. In the village there were, however, four men 
belonging to it, distinguished by the peculiar arrange- 
ment of their hair, which rose in a high, bristling mass 
above their foreheads, adding greatly to their apparent 
height, and giving them a most ferocious appearance. The 
principal among them was the Mad Wolf, a warrior of re- 
markable size and strength, great courage, and the fierce- 
ness of a demon. I had always looked upon him as the 
most dangerous man in the village; and though he often 
invited me to feasts, I never entered his lodge unarmed. 
The Mad Wolf had taken a fancy to a fine horse belong- 
ing to another Indian, called the Tall Bear; and anxious 
to get the animal into his possession, he made the owner 
a present of another horse nearly equal in value. Accord- 
ing to the customs of the Dakota, the acceptance of this 
gift involved a sort of obligation to make a return; and 
the Tall Bear well understood that the other had his 
favorite buffalo-horse in view. He however accepted the 
present without a word of thanks, and having picketed 
the horse before his lodge, suffered day after day to pass 
without making the expected return. The Mad W^olf grew 
impatient; and at last, seeing that his bounty was not 
likely to produce the desired result, be resolved to reclaim 
it. So this evening, as soon as the village was encamped, 
he went to the lodge of the Tall Bear, seized upon the 
horse he had given him, and led him away. At this the 
Tall Bear broke into one of those fits of sullen rage not 
uncommon among Indians, ran up to the unfortunate horse, 
and gave him three mortal stabs with his knife. Quick as 



268 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

lightning the Mad Wolf drew his bow to its utmost ten- 
sion and held the arrow quivering close to the breast of his 
adversary. The Tall Bear, as the Indians who were near 
him said, stood with his bloody knife in his hand facing 
the assailant with the utmost calmness. Some of his 
friends and relatives, seeing his danger, ran hastily to 
his assistance. The remaining three Arrow-Breakers on the 
other hand, came to the aid of their associate. Their 
friends joined them, the war-cry was raised, and the 
tumult became general. 

The "soldiers," who lent their timely aid in putting it 
down, are the most important executive functionaries in 
an Indian village. The office is one of considerable honor, 
being confided only to men of courage and repute. They 
derive their authority from the old men and chief warriors 
of the village, who elect them in councils occasionally con- 
vened for the purpose, and thus they can exercise a degree 
of authority which no one else in the village would dare to 
assume. While very few Ogillallah chiefs could venture 
without risk of their lives to strike or lay hands upon the 
meanest of their people, the "soldiers," in the discharge 
of their appropriate functions, have full license to make 
use of these and similar acts of coercion. 








l-'J. 





TfiUWtliCittTc* 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE BLACK HILLS. 

WE travelled eastward for two days, and then the 
gloomy ridges of the Black Hills rose before us. 
The village passed along for some miles beneath their 
declivities, trailing out to a great length over the arid 
prairie, or winding among small detached hills of dis- 
torted shapes. Turning sharply to the left, we entered a 
wide defile of the mountains, down the bottom of which 
a brook came winding, lined with tall grass and dense 
copses, amid which were hidden many beaver dams and 
lodges. We passed along between two lines of high preci- 
pices and rocks piled in disorder one upon another, with 
scarcely a tree, a bush, or a clump of grass. The restless 
Indian boys wandered along their edges and clambered up 
and down their rugged sides, and sometimes a group of 
them would stand on the verge of a cliff and look down on 
the procession as it passed beneath. As we advanced, the 
passage grew more narrow ; then it suddenly expanded into 
a round grassy meadow, completely encompassed by moun- 
tains ; and here the families stopped as they came up in turn, 
and the camp rose like magic. 

The lodges were hardly pitched when, with their usual 
precipitation, the Indians set about accomplishing the object 
that had brought them there; that is, obtaining poles for 
their new lodges. Half the population, men, women, and 
boys, mounted their horses and set out for the depths of 



2/0 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the mountains. It was a strange cavalcade, as they rode 
at full gallop over the shingly rocks and into the dark open- 
ing of the defile beyond. We passed between precipices, 
sharp and splintering at the tops, their sides beetling over 
the defile or descending in abrupt declivities, bristling 
with fir-trees. On our left they rose close to us like a wall, 
but on the right a winding brook with a narrow strip of 
marshy soil intervened. The stream was clogged with old 
beaver-dams and spread frequently into wide pools. There 
were thick bushes and many dead and blasted trees along 
its course, though frequently nothing remained but stumps 
cut close to the ground by the beaver, and marked with 
the sharp chisel-like teeth of those indefatigable laborers. 
Sometimes we dived among trees, and then emerged upon 
open spots, over which, Indian-like, all galloped at full 
speed. As Pauline bounded over the rocks I felt her saddle- 
girth slipping, and alighted to draw it tighter; when the 
whole cavalcade swept by me in a moment, the women 
with their gaudy ornaments tinkling as they rode, the 
men whooping, laughing, and lashing forward their horses. 
Two black-tailed deer bounded away among the rocks ; 
Raymond shot at them from horseback; the sharp report 
of his rifle was answered by another equally sharp from 
the opposing cliffs, and then the echoes, leaping in rapid 
succession from side to side died away rattling far amid 
the mountains. 

After having ridden in this manner six or eight miles 
the scene changed, and all the declivities were covered 
with forests of tall, slender spruce and pine trees. The 
Indians began to fall off to the right and left, dispersing 
with their hatchets and knives to cut the poles which they 
had come to seek. I was soon left almost alone ; but in the 
stillness of those lonely mountains, the stroke of hatchets 



THE BLACK HILLS. 



271 



and the sound of voices might be heard from far and 
near. 

Reynal, who imitated the Indians in their habits as well 
as the worst features of their character, had killed buffalo 
enough to make a lodge for himself and his squaw, and 
now he was eager to get the poles necessary to complete 
it. He asked me to let Raymond go with him, and assist 
in the work. I assented, and. the two men immediately 
entered the thickest part of the 
wood. Having left my horse in 
Raymond's keeping, I began to 
climb the mountain. I was 
weak and weary, and made slow 
progress, often pausing to rest ; 
but after an hour I gained a 
height whence the little valley 
out of which I had climbed 
seemed like a deep, dark gulf, 
though the inaccessible peak of 
the mountain was still towering 
to a much greater distance 
above. Objects familiar from 

childhood surrounded me, — crags and rocks, a black and 
sullen brook that gurgled with a hollow voice deep among 
the crevices, a wood of mossy, distorted trees and pros- 
trate trunks flung down by age and storms, scattered 
among the rocks, or damming the foaming waters of the 
brook. 

Wild as they were, these mountains were thickly peo- 
pled. As I climbed farther, I found the broad, dusty paths 
made by the elk, as they filed across the mountain side. 
The grass on all the terraces was trampled down by deer; 
there were numerous tracks of wolves, and in some of the 




272 THE OREGON TRAIL. ' 

rougher and more precipitous parts of the ascent I found 
footprints different from any that I had ever seen, and 
which I took to be those of the Rocky Mountain sheep. 
I sat down on a rock; there was a perfect stillness. 
No wind was stirring, and not even an insect could be 
heard. I remembered the danger of becoming lost in 
such a place, and fixed my eye upon one of the tallest 
pinnacles of the opposite mountain. It rose sheer upright 
from the woods below, and, by an extraordinary freak of 
nature, sustained aloft on its very summit a large, loose 
rock. Such a landmark could never be mistaken, and feel- 
ing once more secure, I began again to move forward. 
A white wolf jumped up from among some bushes and 
leaped clumsily away; but he stopped for a moment and 
turned back his keen eye and grim, bristling muzzle. I 
longed to take his scalp and carry it back with me as a 
trophy of the Black Hills, but before I could fire, he was 
gone among the rocks. Soon after I heard a rustling 
sound, with a cracking of twigs at a little distance, and 
saw moving above the tall bushes the branching antlers 
of an elk. I was in a hunter's paradise. 

Such are the Black Hills, as I found them in July; but 
they wear a different garb when winter sets in, when the 
broad boughs of the fir-trees are bent to the ground by 
the load of snow, and the dark mountains are white with 
it. At that season the trappers, returned from their 
autumn expeditions, often build their cabins in the midst 
of these solitudes, and live in abundance and luxury on 
the game that harbors there. I have heard them tell 
how, with their tawny mistresses, and perhaps a few 
young Indian companions, they had spent months in total 
seclusion. They would dig pitfalls, and set traps for the 
white wolves, sables, and martens, and though through 



THE BLACK HILLS. 273 

the whole night the awful chorus of the wolves would re- 
sound from the frozen mountains around them, yet within 
their massive walls of logs they would lie in careless 
ease before the blazing fire, and in the morning shoot 
the elk and deer from their very door. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 



THE camp was full of the newly cut lodge-poles; some, 
already prepared, were stacked together, white and 
glistening, to dry and harden in the sun ; others were lying 
on the ground, and the squaws, the boys, and even some 
of the warriors were busily at work peeling off the bark 
and paring them with their knives to the proper dimen- 
sions. Most of the hides obtained at the last camp were 
dressed and scraped thin enough for use, and many of the 
squaws were engaged in fitting them together and sewing 
them with sinews, to form the coverings for the lodges. 
Men were wandering among the bushes that lined the 
brook along the margin of the camp, cutting sticks of red 
willow, or s/iongsasha, the bark of which, mixed with to- 
bacco, they use for smoking. Reynal's squaw was hard 
at work with her awl and buffalo sinews upon her lodge, 
while her proprietor, having just finished an enormous break- 
fast of meat, was smoking a social pipe with Raymond 
and myself. He proposed at length that we should go 
out on a hunt. "Go to the Big Crow's lodge," said he, 
"and get your rifle. I'll bet the gray Wyandot pony 
against your mare that we start an elk or a black-tailed 
deer, or likely as not a big-horn, before we are two miles 
out of camp. I '11 take my squaw's old yellow horse; 
you can't whip him more than four miles an hour, but he 
is as good for the mountains as a mule." 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 275 

I mounted the black mule which Raymond usually rode. 
She was a powerful animal, gentle and manageable enough 
by nature; but of late her temper had been soured by mis- 
fortune. About a week before, I had chanced to offend 
some one of the Indians, who out of revenge went secretly 
into the meadow and gave her a severe stab in the haunch 
with his knife. The wound, though partially healed, still 
galled her extremely, and made her even more perverse and 
obstinate than the rest of her species. 

The morning was a glorious one, and I was in better 
health than I had been at any time for the last two 
months. We left the little valley and ascended a rocky 
hollow in the mountain. Very soon we were out of sight of 
the camp, and of every living thing, man, beast, bird, or in- 
sect. I had never before, except on foot, passed over such ex- 
ecrable ground, and I desire never to repeat the experiment. 
The black mule grew indignant, and even the redoubtable 
yellow horse stumbled every moment, and kept groaning to 
himself as he cut his feet and legs among the sharp rocks. 

It was a scene of silence and desolation. Little was 
visible except beetling crags and the bare shingly sides 
of the mountains, relieved by scarcely a trace of vegeta- 
tion. At length, however, we came upon a forest tract, 
and had no sooner done so than we heartily wished our- 
selves back among the rocks again ; for we were on a . 
steep descent, among trees so thick that we could see 
scarcely a rod in any direction. 

If one is anxious to place himself in a situation where 
the hazardous and the ludicrous are combined in about 
equal proportions, let him get upon a vicious mule, with a 
snaffle bit, and try to drive her through the woods down 
a slope of forty-five degrees. Let him have a long rifle, 
a buckskin frock with long fringes, and a head of long 



2/6 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

hair. These latter appendages will be caught everv mo- 
ment antl twitched away in small portions by the twigs. 
which will also whip him smartly across the face, while 
the large branches above thump him on the head. His 
mule, if she be a true one, will alternately stop short and 
dive violently forward, and his positions upon her back 
will be somewhat diversified. At one time he will clasp 
her affectionately, to avoid the blow of a bough overhead; 
at another, he will throw himself back and fling his knee 
forward against her neck, to keep it from being crushed 
between the rough bark of a tree and the ribs of the ani- 
mal. Reynal was cursing incessantly during the whole way 
down. Neither of us had the remotest idea where we were 
going; and though I have seen rough riding. I shall alwa\s 
retain an evil recollection of that five minutes' scramble. 

At last we left our troubles behind us, emerging into 
the channel of a brook that circled along the foot of the 
descent ; and here, turning joyfully to the left, we rode 
at ease over the white pebbles and the rippling water, 
shaded from the glaring sun by an overarching green trans- 
parencv. These halcyon moments were of short tluration. 
The friendh- brot.k. turning sharply to one side, went brawl- 
ing and foaming down the rocky hill into an abyss, which, 
as far as we could see, had no bottom ; so once more we 
betook ourselves to the detested woods. When next we 
came out from their shadcnv we found ourselves standing 
in the broad glare of day, on a high jutting point of the 
mountain. Before us stretched a long, wide, desert valley, 
winding awav far amid the mountains. Reynal gazed in- 
tentlv; he began to speak at last: — 

" Manv a time, when I was with the Indians. I have been 
hunting for gold all through the Black Hills. There "s 
plenty of it here; you may be certain of that. I have 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 2^7 



dreamed about it fifty times, and I never dreamed yet but 
wbat it came out true. Look over yonder at those black 
rocks piled up against that other big rock. Don't it look 
as if there might be something there.'' It won't do for a 
white man to be rummaging too much about these moun- 
tains; the Indians say they are full of bad spirits; and I 
believe myself that it's no good luck to be hunting about 
here after gold. Well, for all that, I would like to have 
one of those fellows up here, from down below, to go about 
with his witch-hazel rod, and I '11 guarantee that it would 
not be long before he would light on a gold-mine. 
Never mind; we'll let the gold alone for to-dav. Look 
at those trees down bel-ow us in the hollow; we'll go 
down there, and I reckon we'll get a black-tailed deer." 

But Reynal's predictions were not verified. We passed 
mountain after mountain, and valley after valley; we ex- 
plored deep ravines; yet still, to my companion's vexa- 
tion and evident surprise, no game could be found. So, in 
the absence of better, we resolved to go out on the plains 
and look for an antelope. With this view we began to pass 
down a narrow valley, the bottom of which was covered with 
the stiff wild-sage bushes and marked with deep paths, 
made by the buffalo, who, for some inexplicable reason, are 
accustomed to penetrate, in their long grave processions, 
deep among the gorges of these sterile mountains. 

Reynal's eye ranged incessantly among the rocks and 
along the edges of the precipices, in hopes of discovering 
the mountain-sheep peering down upon us from that giddy 
height. Nothing was visible for some time. At length 
we both detected something in motion near the foot of one 
of the m.ountains, and a moment afterward a black-tailed 
deer stood gazing at us from the top of a rock, and then, 
slowly turning away, disppeared behind it. In an instant 



2/8 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Reynal was out of his saddle, and running towards tlie 
spot. I, being too weak to follow, sat holding his horse 
and waiting the result. I lost sight of him; then heard the 
report of his rifle, deadened among the rocks, and finally 
saw him reappear, with a surly look, that plainly be- 
trayed his ill-success. Again we moved forward down 
the long valley, till we came full upon what seemed a 
wide and very shallow ditch, incrusted at the bottom with 
white clay, dried and cracked in the sun. Under this 
fair outside Reynal' s eye detected the signs of lurking 
mischief. He called to me to stop, and then alighting, 
picked up a stone and threw it into the ditch. To my 
amazement it fell with a dull splash, breaking at once 
through the thin crust, and spattering round the hole a 
yellowish, creamy fluid, into which it sank and disap- 
peared. A stick five or six feet long lay on the ground, 
and with this we sounded the insidious abyss close to its 
edge. It was just possible to touch the bottom. Places 
like this are numerous among the Rocky Mountains. The 
buffalo, in his blind and heedless walk, often plunges into 
them unawares. Down he sinks; one snort of terror, one 
convulsive struggle, and the slime calmly flows above his 
shaggy head, the languid undulations of its sleek and 
placid surface alone betraying how the powerful monster 
writhes in his death-throes below. 

We found after some trouble a point where we could 
pass the abyss, and now the valley began to open upon 
plains which spread to the horizon before us. On one of 
their distant swells we discerned three or four black specks, 
which Reynal pronounced to be buffalo. 

"Come," said he, "we must get one of them. jNIy squaw 
wants more sinews to finish her lodge with, and I want some 
glue myself." 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 279 

He immediately put the yellow horse to such a gallop 
as he was capable ot executing, while I set spurs to the 
mule, who soon far outran her plebeian rival. When we 
had galloped a mile or more, a large rabbit, by ill-luck, 
sprang up just under the feet of the mule, which bounded 
violently aside in full career. Weakened as I was, I was 
flung forcibly to the ground, and my rifle, falling close 
to my head, went ofl^ with the shock. Its sharp, spiteful 
report rang for some moments in my ear. Being slightly 
stunned, I lay for an instant motionless, and Reynal, sup- 
posing me to be shot, rode up and began to curse the 
mule. Soon recovering myself, I rose, picked up the 
rifle, and anxiously examined it. It was badly injured. 
The stock was cracked, and the main screw broken, so 
that the lock had to be tied in its place with a string; 
yet happily it was not rendered totally unserviceable. I 
wiped it out, reloaded it, and handing it to Reynal, who 
meanwhile had caught the mule and led her up to me, T 
mounted again. No sooner had I done so than the brute 
began to rear and plunge with extreme violence; but being 
now well prepared for her, and free from incumbrance, I 
soon reduced her to submission. Then, taking the rifle 
again from Reynal, we galloped forward as before. 

We were now free of the mountains and riding far out 
on the broad prairie. The buffalo were still some two 
miles in advance of us. When we came near them, we 
stopped where a gentle swell of the plain concealed us, 
and while I held his horse Reynal ran forward with his 
rifle, till I lost sight of him beyond the rising ground. A 
few minutes elapsed : I heard the report of his piece, and 
saw the buffalo running away at full speed on the right; 
immediately after, the hunter himself, unsuccessful as be- 
fore, came up and mounted his horse in excessive ill- 



28o THE OREGON TRAIL. 



humor. He cursed the Black Hills and the buffalo, swore 
that he was a good hunter, which indeed was true, and 
that he had never been out before among those moun- 
tains without killing two or three deer at least. 

We now turned towards the distant encampment. As 
we rode along, antelope in considerable numbers were 
flying lightly in all directions over the plain, but not one 
of them would stand and be shot at. When we reached 
the foot of the mountain-ridge that lay between us and 
the village, we were too impatient to take the smooth 
and circuitous route ; so turning short to the left we 
drove our wearied animals upward among the rocks. Still 
more antelope were leaping about among these flinty hill- 
sides. Each of us shot at one, though from a great dis- 
tance, and each missed his mark. At length we reached 
the summit of the last ridge. Looking down we saw the 
• bustling camp in the valley at our feet, and ingloriously 
descended to it. As we rode among the lodges, the Indians 
looked in vain for the fresh meat that should have hung behind 
our saddles, and the squaws uttered various suppressed 
ejaculations, to the great indignation of Reynal. Our 
mortification was increased when we rode up to his lodge. 
Here he saw his young Indian relative, the Hail-Storm, his 
light, graceful figure reclining on the ground in an easy 
attitude, while with his friend the Rabbit, who sat by 
his side, he was making an abundant meal from a wooden 
bowl of zoasna, which the squaw had placed between them. 
Near him lay the fresh skin of a female elk, which he had 
just killed among the mountains, only a mile or two from 
the camp. No doubt the boy's heart was elated with tri- 
umph, but he betrayed no sign of it. He even seemed 
totally unconscious of our approach, and his handsome 
face had all the tranquillity of Indian self-control, — a self- 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 



281 




r' C 



282 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

control which prevents the exhibition of emotion without 
restraining the emotion itself. It was about two months 
since I had known the Hail-Storm, and within that time 
his character had remarkably developed. When I first saw 
him he was just emerging from the habits and feelings of 
the boy into the ambition of the hunter and warrior. 
He had lately killed his first deer, and this had excited his 
aspirations for distinction. Since that time he had been 
continually in search of game, and no young hunter in the 
village had been so active or so fortunate as he. All this 
success had produced a marked change in his character. 
As I first remembered him he always shunned the society 
of the young squaws, and was extremely bashful and sheep- 
ish in their presence; but now, in the confidence of his 
new reputation he began to assume the air and arts of a 
man of gallantry. He wore his red blanket dashingly 
over his left shoulder, painted his cheeks every day with 
vermilion, and hung pendants of shells in his ears. If I 
observed aright, he met with very good success in his new 
pursuits; still the Hail-Storm had much to accomplish 
before he attained the full standing of a warrior. Gal- 
lantly as he began to bear himself among the women and 
girls, he was still timid and abashed in the presence of 
the chiefs and old men ; for he had never yet killed a 
man, or stricken the dead body of an enemy in battle. I 
have no doubt that the handsome, smooth-faced boy burned 
with desire to flesh his maiden scalping-knife, and I would 
not have encamped alone with him without watching his 
movements with a suspicious eye. 

His elder brother, the Horse, was of a different char- 
acter. He was nothing but a lazy dandy. He knew very 
well how to hunt, but preferred to live by the hunting of 
others. He had no appetite for distinction, and the Hail- 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 283 

Storm already surpassed him in reputation. He had a dark 
and ugly face, and passed a great part of his time in adorn- 
ing it with vermilion, and contemplating it by means of a 
little pocket looking-glass which I had given him. As for 
the rest of the day, he divided it between eating, sleep- 
ing, and sitting in the sun on the outside of a lodge. 
Here he would remain for hour after hour arrayed in all 
his finery, with an old dragoon's sword in his hand, evi- 
dently flattering himself that he was the centre of attrac- 
tion to the eyes of the surrounding squaws. Yet he sat 
looking straight forward with a face of the utmost gravity, 
as if wrapped in profound meditation, and it was only by 
the occasional sidelong glances which he shot at his sup- 
posed admirers that one could detect the true course of 
his thoughts. 

Both he and his brother may represent classes in the 
Indian community; neither should the Hail-Storm's friend 
the Rabbit, be passed by without notice. The Hail-Storm 
and he were inseparable; they ate, slept, and hunted to- 
gether, and shared with one another almost all that they 
possessed. If there be anything that deserves to be called 
romantic in the Indian character, it is to be sought for in 
friendships such as this, which are common among many 
of the prairie tribes. 

Slowly, hour after hour, that weary afternoon dragged 
away. I lay in Reynal's lodge, overcome by the listless 
torpor that pervaded the encampment. The day's work 
was finished, or if it were not, the inhabitants had re- 
solved not to finish it at all, and were dozing quietly 
within the shelter of the lodges. A profound lethargy, 
the very spirit of indolence, seemed to have sunk upon 
the village. Now and then I could hear the low laughter 
of some girl from within a neighboring lodge, or the small 



284 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

shrill voices of a few restless children who alone were 
moving in the deserted area. The spirit of the place in- 
fected me; I could not think consecutively; I was fit only 
for musing and revery, when at last, like the rest, I fell 
asleep. 

When evening came, and the fires were lighted round 
the lodges, a select family circle convened in the neigh- 
borhood of Reynal's domicile. It was composed entirely 
of his squaw's relatives, a mean and ignoble clan, among 
whom none but the Hail-Storm held forth any promise of 
future distinction. Even his prospects were rendered not 
a little dubious by the character of the family, less how- 
ever from any principle of aristocratic distinction than 
from the want of powerful supporters to assist him in his 
undertakings and help to avenge his quarrels. Raymond 
and I sat down along with them. There were eight or 
ten men gathered round the fire, together with about as 
many women, old and young, some of whom were toler- 
ably good-looking. As the pipe passed round among, the 
men, a lively conversation went forward, more merry than 
delicate, and at length two or three of the elder women 
(for the girls were somewhat diffident and bashful} began 
to assail Raymond with various pungent witticisms. Some 
of the men took part, and an old squaw concluded by be- 
stowing on him a ludicrous and indecent nickname, at 
which a general laugh followed at his expense. Raymond 
grinned and giggled and made several futile attempts at 
repartee. Knowing the impolicy and even danger of suf- 
fering myself to be placed in a ludicrous light among the 
Indians, I maintained a rigid, inflexible countenance, and 
wholly escaped their sallies. 

In the morning I found, to my great disgust, that the 
camp v/as to remain where it was for another day. I dreaded 



A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 285 

its languor and monotony, and, to escape it, set out to ex- 
plore the surrounding mountains. I was accompanied by 
a faithful friend, my rifle, the only friend indeed on whose 
prompt assistance in time of trouble I could wholly rely. 
Most of the Indians in the village, it is true, professed 
good-will towards the whites, but the experience of others 
and my own observation had taught me the extreme folly 
of confidence, and the utter impossibility of foreseeing to 
what sudden acts the strange, unbridled impulses of an In- 
dian may urge him. When among this people danger is 
never so near as when you are unprepared for it, never 
so remote as when you are armed and on the alert to 
meet it at any moment. Nothing offers so strong a temp- 
tation to their ferocious instincts as the appearance of 
timidity, weakness, or security. 

Many deep and gloomy gorges, choked with trees and 
bushes, opened from the sides of the hills, which were 
shaggy with forests wherever the rocks permitted vegeta- 
tion to spring. A great number of Indians were ^talking 
along the edges of the woods, and boys were whooping 
and laughing on the mountains, practising eye and hand, 
and indulging their destructive propensities by killing 
birds and small animals with their little bows and arrows. 
There was one glen, stretching up between steep cliffs far 
into the bosom of the mountain. I began to ascend along 
its bottom, pushing my way onward among the rocks, trees, 
and bushes that obstructed it. A slender thread of water 
trickled through it, which since issuing from the heart of 
its native rock could scarcely have been warmed or glad- 
dened by a ray of sunshine. After advancing for some 
time, I conceived myself to be entirely alone; but coming 
to a part of the glen in a great measure free of trees and 
undergrowth, I saw at some distance the black head and 



286 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



red shoulders of an Indian among the bushes above. The 
reader need not prepare himself for a startling adventure, 
for I have none to relate. The 
head and shoulders belonged to 
Mene-Seela, my best friend in the 
village. As I had approached 
noiselessly with my moccasined 
feet, the old man was quite un- 
aware of my presence; and turning 
to a point where I could gain an 
unobstructed view of him, I saw 
him seated alone, immovable as a ,^ . } 






statue, 

among the 

rocks and trees. 

His face was turned 

upward, and his eyes 

seemed riveted on a 

pine-tree springing from 

a cleft in the precipice 

above. The crest of 

the pine was 

swaying to 

and fro 

in the 

wind, 

and its 

long limbs waved slowly up and down, as if the tree had 

life. Looking for a while at the old man, I was satisfied 

that he was engaged in an act of worship, or prayer, or 




A MOUNTAIN HUNT. 287 



communion of some kind with a supernatural being. I 
longed to penetrate his thoughts, but I could do nothing 
more than conjecture and speculate. I knew that though 
the intellect of an Indian can embrace the idea of an all- 
wise, all-powerful Spirit, the supreme Ruler of the uni- 
verse, yet his mind will not always ascend into communion 
with a being that seems to him so vast, remote, and in- 
comprehensible; and when danger threatens, when his 
hopes are broken, and trouble overshadows him, he is prone 
to turn for relief to some inferior agency, less removed 
from the ordinary scope of his faculties. He has a guar- 
dian spirit, on whom he relies for succor and guidance. 
To him all nature is instinct with mystic influence. 
Among those mountains not a wild beast was prowling, a 
bird singing, or a leaf fluttering, that might not tend to 
direct his destiny, or give warning of what was in store 
for him ; and he watches the world of nature around him 
as the astrologer watches the stars. So closely is he linked 
with it that his guardian spirit, no unsubstantial creation 
of the fancy, is usually embodied in the form of some living 
thing, — a bear, a wolf, an eagle, or a serpent; and Mene- 
Seela, as he gazed intently on the old pine-tree, might 
believe it to inshrine the fancied guide and protector of 
his life. 

Whatever was passing in the mind of the old man, it was 
no part of good sense to disturb him. Silently retracing 
my footsteps, I descended the glen till I came to a point 
where I could climb the precipices that shut it in, and gain 
the side of the mountain. Looking up, I saw a tall peak 
rising among the woods. Something impelled me to climb; 
I had not felt for many a day such strength and elasticity 
of limb. An hour and a half of slow and often inter- 
mitted labor brought me to the summit; and emerging from 



288 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the dark shadows of the rocks and pines, I stepped out 
into the light, and walking along the sunny verge of a 
precipice, seated myself on its extreme point. Looking 
between the mountain-peaks to the westward, the pale- 
blue prairie was stretching to the farthest horizon, like a 
serene and tranquil ocean. The surrounding mountains 
were in themselves sufificiently striking and impressive, 
but this contrast gave redoubled effect to their stern 
features. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 

WHEN I took leave of Shaw at La Bonte's camp, I 
promised to meet him at Fort Laramie on the first 
of August. The Indians, too, intended to pass the moun- 
tains and move towards the fort. To do so at this point 
was impossible, because there was no passage ; and in 
order to find one we were obliged to go twelve or four- 
teen miles southward. Late in the afternoon the camp 
broke up. I rode in company with three or four 
young Indians at the rear, and the moving swarm stretched 
before me, in the ruddy light of sunset, or the deep 
shadow of the mountains, far beyond my sight. It was an 
ill-omened spot they chose to encamp upon. When they 
were there just a year before, a war- party of ten men, 
led by the Whirlwind's son, had gone out against the 
enemy, and not one had ever returned. This was the im- 
mediate cause of this season's warlike preparations. I 
was not a little astonished, when I came to the camp, at 
the confusion of horrible sounds with which it was filled; 
howls, shrieks, and wailings rose from all the women pres- 
ent, many of whom, not content with this exhibition of 
grief for the loss of their friends and relatives, were 
gashing their legs deeply with knives. A warrior in the 
village, who had lost a brother in the expedition, chose 
another mode of displaying his sorrow. The Indians, who 
though often rapacious, are devoid of avarice, will some- 

19 



290 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

times, when in mourning, or on other solemn occasions, give 
away the whole of their possessions, and reduce themselves 
to nakedness and want. The warrior in question led his 
two best horses into the middle of the village, and gave 
them away to his friends; upon which songs and acclama- 
tions in praise of his generosity mingled with the cries of 
the women. 

On the next morning we entered again among the moun- 
tains. There was nothing in their appearance either grand 
or picturesque, though they were desolate to the last de- 
gree, being mere piles of black and broken rocks, without 
trees or vegetation of any kind. As we passed among 
them along a wide valley, I noticed Raymond riding by 
the side of a young squaw, to whom he was addressing 
various compliments. All the old squaws in the neigh- 
borhood watched his proceedings in great admiration, and 
the girl herself would turn aside her head and laugh. 
Just then his mule thought proper to display her vi- 
cious pranks, and began to rear and plunge furiously. 
Raymond was an excellent rider, and at first he stuck 
fast in his seat; but the moment after, I saw the mule's 
hind-legs flourishing in the air and my unlucky follower 
pitching head foremost ov^er her ears. There was a burst 
of screams and laughter from all the women, in which his 
mistress herself took part, and Raymond was assailed by 
such a shower of witticisms that he was glad to ride for- 
ward out of hearing. 

Not long after, as I rode near him, I heard him shouting 
to me. He was pointing towards a detached rocky hill 
that stood in the middle of the valley before us, and from 
behind it a long file of elk came out at full speed and en- 
tered an opening in the mountain. They had scarcely dis- 
appeared, when whoops and exclamations came from fifty 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 291 

voices around me. The young men leaped from their 
horses, flung down their heavy buffalo robes and ran at 
full speed towards the foot of the nearest mountain. Rey- 
nal also broke away at a gallop in the same direction. 
" Come on ! come on ! " he called to us. " Do you see that 
band of big-horn up yonder.'' If there's one of them, 
there's a hundred!" 

In fact, near the summit of the mountain I could see 
a large number of small white objects, moving rapidly 
upwards among the precipices, while others were filing 
along its rocky profile. Anxious to see the sport, I gal- 
loped forward, and entering a passage in the side of the 
mountain, ascended among the loose rocks as far as my 
horse could carry me. Here I fastened her to an old pine- 
tree. At that moment Raymond called to me from the 
right that another band of sheep was close at hand in that 
direction. I ran up to the top of the opening, which gave 
me a full view into the rocky gorge beyond; and here I 
plainly saw some fifty or sixty sheep, almost within rifle- 
shot, clattering upwards among the rocks, and endeavoring, 
after their usual custom, to reach the highest point. The 
naked Indians bounded up lightly in pursuit. In a moment 
the game and hunters disappeared. Nothing could be seen 
or heard but the occasional report of a gun, more and more 
distant, reverberating among the rocks. 

I turned to descend, and as I did so, could see the val- 
ley below alive with Indians passing rapidly through it, 
on horseback and on foot. A little farther on, all were 
stopping as they came up; the camp was preparing and 
the lodges rising. I descended to this spot, and soon 
after Reynal and Raymond returned. They bore between 
them a sheep which they had pelted to death with stones 
from the edge of a ravine, along the bottom of which 



292 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

it was attempting to escape. One by one the hunters 
came dropping in ; yet such is the activity of the Rocky 
Mountain sheep, that although sixt}' or seventy men were 
out in pursuit, not more than half a dozen animals were 
killed. Of these only one was a full-grown male. He 
had a pair of horns, the size of which was almost beyond 
belief. I have seen among the Indians ladles with long- 
handles, capable of containing more than a quart, cut out 
from such horns. 

Through the whole of the next morning we were moving 
forward among the hills. On the following day the heights 
closed around us, and the passage of the mountains began 
in earnest. Before the \'illage left its 'camping-ground, I 
set forward in company with the Eagle-Feather, a man of 
powerful frame, but with a bad and sinister face. His 
son, a light-limbed boy, rode with us, and another Indian, 
named the Panther, was also of the party. Leaving the 
village out of sight behind us, we rode together up a rocky 
defile. After a while, however, the Eagle-Feather discov- 
ered in the distance some appearance of game, and set off 
with his son in pursuit of it, while I went forward with 
the Panther. This was a mere 7ioni dc guerre; for, like 
many Indians, he concealed his real name out of some 
superstitious notion. He was a noble-looking fellow. As 
he suffered his ornamented buffalo-robe to fall in folds 
about his loins, his stately and graceful figure was fully 
displayed; and while, he sat his horse in an easy attitude 
the long feathers of the prairie-cock fluttering from the 
crown of his head, he seemed the very model of a wild 
prairie-rider. He had not the same features with those 
of other Indians. Unless his face greatly belied him, he 
was free from the jealousy, suspicion, and malignant cun- 
ning of his people. For the most part, a civilized white 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 293 

man can discover very few points of sympathy between 
his own nature and that of an Indian. With every dis- 
position to do justice to their good qualities, he must be 
conscious that an impassable gulf lies between him and 
his red brethren. Nay, so alien to himself do they ap- 
pear that, after breathing the air of the prairie for a few 
months or weeks, he begins to look upon them as a trouble- 
some and dangerous species of wild beast. Yet, in the 
countenance of the Panther, I gladly read that there were 
at least some points of sympathy between him and me. 
We were excellent friends, and as we rode forward together 
through rocky passages, deep dells, and little barren plains, 
he occupied himself very zealously in teaching me the Dakota 
language. After a while we came to a grassy recess, where 
some gooseberry-bushes were growing at the foot of a rock; 
and these offered such temptation to my companion that 
he gave over his instructions, and stopped so long to gather 
the fruit that before we were in motion again the van of 
the village came in view. An old woman appeared, lead- 
ing down her pack-horse among the rocks above. Savage 
after savage followed, and the little dell was soon crowded 
with the throng. 

That morning's march was one not to be forgotten. It 
led us through a sublime waste, a wilderness of mountains 
and pine-forests, over which the spirit of loneliness and 
silence seemed brooding. Above and below, little could be 
seen but the same dark, green foliage. It overspread the 
valleys, and enveloped the mountains, from the black rocks 
that crowned their summits to the streams that circled 
round their bases. I rode to the top of a hill whence I 
could look down on the savage procession as it passed 
beneath my feet, and, far on the left, could see its thin 
and broken line, visible only at intervals, stretching away 



294 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

for miles among the mountains. On the .farthest ridge, 
horsemen were still descending like mere specks in the 
distance. 

I remained on the hill till all had passed, and then 
descending followed after them. A little farther on I 
found a very small meadow, set deeply among steep moun- 
tains; and here the whole village had encamped. The 
little spot was crowded with the confused and disorderly 
host. Some of the lodges were already set up, or the 
squaws perhaps were busy in drawing the heavy coverings 
of skin over the bare poles. Others were as yet mere skele- 
tons, while others still, poles, covering, and all, lay scat- 
tered in disorder on the ground among buffalo-robes, bales 
of meat, domestic utensils, harness, and weapons. Squaws 
were screaming to one another, horses rearing and plung- 
ing, dogs yelping, eager to be disburdened of their loads, 
while the fluttering of feathers and the gleam of savage 
ornaments added liveliness to the scene. The small chil- 
dren ran about amid the crowd, while many of the boys 
were scrambling among the overhanging rocks, and stand- 
ing with their little bows in their hands, looking down 
upon the restless throng. In contrast with the general 
confusion, a circle of old men and warriors sat in the 
midst, smoking in profound indifference and tranquillity. 
The disorder at length subsided. The horses were driven 
away to feed along the adjacent valley, and the camp as- 
sumed an air of listless repose. It was scarcely past noon; 
a vast white canopy of smoke from a burning forest to the 
eastward overhung the place, and partially obscured the 
rays of the sun ; yet the heat was almost insupportable. 
The lodges stood crowded together without order in the 
narrow space. Each was a hot-house, within which the 
lazy proprietor lay sleeping. The camp was silent as 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 295 

death. Nothing stirred except now and then an old woman 
passing from lodge to lodge. The girls and young men 
sat together in groups, under the pine-trees upon the sur- 
rounding heights. The dogs lay panting on the ground, 
too languid eve'n to growl at the white man. At the en- 
trance of the meadow, there was a cold spring among the 
rocks, completely overshadowed by tall trees and dense 
undergrowth. In this cool and shady retreat a number of 
girls were assembled, sitting together on rocks and fallen 
logs, discussing the latest gossip of the village, or laugh- 
ing and throwing water with their hands at the intruding 
Meneaska. The minutes seemed lengthened into hours. 
I lay for a long time under a tree studying the Ogillallah 
tongue, with the aid of my friend the Panther. When we 
were both tired of this, I lay down by the side of a deep, 
clear pool, formed by the water of the spring. A shoal of 
little fishes of about a pin's length were playing in it, 
sporting together, as it seemed, very amicably; but on 
closer observation I saw that they were engaged in cannibal 
warfare among themselves. Now and then one of the small- 
est would fall a victim, and immediately disappear down the 
maw of his conqueror. Every moment, however, the tyrant 
of the pool, a goggle-eyed monster about three inches long, 
would slowly emerge with quivering fins and tail from under 
the shelving bank. The small fry at this would suspend 
their hostilities, and scatter in a panic at the appearance 
of overwhelming force. 

"Soft-hearted philanthropists, " thought I, " may sigh long 
for their peaceful millennium; for, from minnows to men, 
life is incessant war." 

Evening approached at last; the crests of the mountains 
were still bright in sunshine, while our deep glen was 
completely shadowed. I left the camp, and climbed a 



296 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

neighboring hill. The sun was still glaring through the 
stiff pines on the ridge of the western mountain. In a 
moment he was gone, and, as the landscape darkened, I 
turned again towards the village. As I descended, the 
howling of wolves and the barking of foxes came up out 
of the dim woods from far and near. The camp was glow 
ing with a multitude of fires, and alive with dusky naked 
figures, whose tall shadows flitted, weird and ghost-like, 
among the surrounding crags. 

I found a circle of smokers seated in their usual place; 
that is, on the ground before the lodge of a certain warrior 
who seemed to be generally known for his social qualities. 
I sat down to smoke a parting pipe with my savage friends. 
That day was the first of August on which I had promised 
to meet Shaw at Fort Laramie. The fort was less than 
two days' journey distant, and that my friend need not 
suffer anxiety on my account, I resolved to push forward 
as rapidly as possible to the place of meeting. I went to 
look after the Hail-Storm, and having found him I offered 
him a handful of hawks' -bells and a paper of vermilion, 
on condition that he would guide me in the morning 
through the mountains. 

The Hail-Storm ejaculated " How ! " and accepted the 
gift. Nothing more was said on either side; the matter 
was settled, and I lay down to sleep in Kongra-Tonga's 
lodge. 

Long before daylight, Raymond shook me by the 
shoulder. 

"Everything is ready," he said. 

I went out. The morning was chill, damp, and dark ; 
and the whole camp seemed asleep. The Hail-Storm sat 
on horseback before the lodge, and my mare Pauline and 
the mule which Raymond rode were picketed near it. We 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 297 



saddled and made our other arrangements for the journey, 
but before these were completed the camp began to stir, 
and the lodge-coverings fluttered and rustled as the squaws 
pulled them down in preparation for departure. Just as 
the light began to appear we left the ground, passing up 
through a narrow opening among the rocks which led east- 
ward out of the meadow. Gaining the top of this passage, 
I turned and sat looking back upon the camp, dimly visible 
in the gray light of morning. All was alive with the bustle 
of preparation. I turned away, half unwilling to take a 
final leave of my savage associates. We passed among 
rocks and pine-trees so dark that for a while we could 
scarcely see our way. The country in front was wild and 
broken, half hill, half plain, partly open and partly cov- 
ered with woods of pine and oak. Barriers of lofty moun- 
tains encompassed it ; the woods were fresh and cool in the 
early morning, the peaks of the mountains were wreathed 
with mist, and sluggish vapors were entangled among the 
forests upon their sides. At length the black pinnacle of 
the tallest mountain was tipped with gold by the rising 
sun. The Hail-Storm, who rode in front, gave a low ex- 
clamation. Some large animal leaped up from among the 
bushes, and an elk, as I thought, his horns thrown back 
over his neck, darted past us across the open space, and 
bounded like a mad thing away among the adjoining pines. 
Raymond was soon out of his saddle, but before he could 
fire the animal was full two hundred yards distant. The 
ball struck its mark, though much too low for mortal 
effect. The elk, however, wheeled in his flight, and ran 
at full speed among the trees, nearly at right angles to 
his former course. I fired and broke his shoulder; still he 
moved on, limping down into a neighboring woody hollow, 
whither the young Indian followed, and killed hira. When 



298 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

we reached the spot we discovered him to be no elk, but 
a black-tailed deer, an animal nearly twice as large as the 
common deer, and quite unknown in the East. The reports 
of the rifles had reached the ears of the Indians, and 
several of them came to the spot. Leaving the hide of 
the deer to the Hail-Storm, we hung as much of the meat 
as we wanted behind our saddles, left the rest to the In- 
dians, and resumed our journey. Meanwhile the village 
was on its way, and had gone so far that to get in advance 
of it was impossible. We directed our course so as to 
strike its line of march at the nearest point. In a short 
time, through the dark trunks of the pines, we could see 
the figures of the Indians as they passed. Once more we 
were among them. They were moving with even more 
than their usual precipitation, crowded together in a nar- 
row pass between rocks and old pine-trees. We were on 
the eastern descent of the mountain, and soon came to a 
rough and difficult defile, leading down a steep declivity. 
The whole swarm poured down together, filling the rocky 
passage-way like some turbulent mountain-stream. The 
mountains before us were on fire, and had been so for weeks. 
The view in front was obscured by a vast, dim sea of smoke, 
while on either hand rose the tall cliffs, bearing aloft their 
crests of pines, and the sharp pinnacles and broken ridges 
of the mountains beyond were faintly traceable as through 
a veil. The scene in itself was grand and imposing, but 
with the savage multitude, the armed warriors, the naked 
children, the gayly apparelled girls, pouring impetuously 
down the heights, it would have formed a noble subject 
for a painter, and only the pen of a Scott could have done 
it justice in description. 

We passed over a burnt tract where the ground was hot 
beneath the horses' feet, and between the blazing sides of 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 299 

two mountains. Before long we had descended to a softer 
region, where we found a succession of little valleys watered 
by a stream, along the borders of which grew abundance of 
wild gooseberries and currants, and the children and many of 
the men straggled from the line of march to gather them as 
we passed along. Descending still farther, the view changed 
rapidly. The burning mountains were behind us, and through 
the open valleys in front we could see the prairie, stretching 
like an ocean beyond the sight. After passing through a line 
of trees that skirted the brook, the Indians filed out upon 
the plains. I was thirsty and knelt down by the little 
stream to drink. As I mounted again, I very carelessly 
left my rifle among the grass, and my thoughts being 
otherwise absorbed, I rode for some distance before dis- 
covering its absence. I lost no time in turning about and 
galloping back in search of it. Passing the line of Indians, 
I watched every warrior as he rode by me at a canter, and 
at length discovered my rifle in the hands of one of them, 
who, on my approaching to claim it, immediately gave it 
up. Having no other means of acknowledging the obliga- 
tion, I took off one of my spurs and gave it to him. He was 
greatly delighted, looking upon it as a distinguished mark 
of favor, and immediately held out his foot for me to buckle 
it on. As soon as I had done so, he struck it with all his 
force into the side of his horse, which gave a violent leap. 
The Indian laughed and spurred harder than before. At 
this the horse shot away like an arrow, amid the screams 
and laughter of the squaws, and the ejaculations of the 
men, who exclaimed: "Washtay! — Good!" at the potent 
effect of my gift. The Indian had no saddle, and nothing 
in place of a bridle except a leather string tied round the 
horse's jaw. The animal was of course wholly uncontrol- 
lable, and stretched away at full speed over the prairie, 



300 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

till he and his rider vanished behind a distant swell. I 
never saw the man again, but I presume no harm came to 
him. An Indian on horseback has more lives than a cat. 

The village encamped on the scorching prairie, close to 
the foot of the mountains. The heat was intense and pene- 
trating. The coverings of the lodges were raised a foot 
or more from the ground, in order to procure some circu- 
lation of air; and Reynal thought proper to lay aside his 
trapper's dress of buckskin and assume the very scanty 
costume of an Indian. Thus elegantly attired, he stretched 
himself in his lodge on a buffalo-robe, alternately cursing 
the heat and puffing at the pipe which he and I passed 
beween us. There was present also a select circle of 
Indian friends and relatives. A small boiled puppy was 
served up as a parting feast, to which was added, by 
way of dessert, a wooden bowl of gooseberries from the 
mountains. 

"Look there," said Reynal, pointing out of the opening 
of his lodge; "do you see that line of buttes about fifteen 
miles off.-* Well, now do you see that farthest one, with 
the white speck on the face of it.^ Do you think you ever 
saw it before } " 

"It looks to me," said I, "like the hill that we were 
'camped under when we were on Laramie Creek, six or 
eight weeks ago." 

"You've hit it," answered Reynal. 

"Go and bring in the animals, Raymond," said I; 
"we'll camp there to-night, and start for the fort in the 
morning." 

The mare and the mule were soon before the lodge. We 
saddled them, and in the mean time a number of Indians 
collected about us. The virtues of Pauline, my strong, fleet, 
and hardy little mare, were well known in camp, and 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 301 

several of the visitors were mounted upon good horses 
which they had brought me as presents. J promptly- 
declined their offers, since accepting them would have 
involved the necessity of transferring Pauline into their 
barbarous hands. We took leave of Reynal, but not of 
the Indians, who are accustomed to dispense with such 
superfluous ceremonies. Leaving the camp we rode straight 
over the prairie towards the white-faced bluff, whose pale 
ridges swelled gently against the horizon, like a cloud. 
An Indian went with us, whose name I forget, though 
the ugliness of his face and the ghastly width of his 
mouth dwell vividly in my recollection. The antelope 
were numerous, but we did not heed them. We rode 
directly towards our destination, over the arid plains and 
barren hills ; until, late in the afternoon, half spent with 
heat, thirst, and fatigue, we saw a gladdening sight, — the 
long line of trees and the deep gulf that mark the course 
of Laramie Creek. Passing through the growth of huge, 
dilapidated old cotton-wood trees that bordered the creek, 
we rode across to the other side. The rapid and foam- 
ing waters were filled with fish playing and splashing 
in the shallows. As we gained the farther bank, our 
horses turned eagerly to drink, and we, kneeling on the 
sand, followed their example. We had not gone far be- 
fore the scene began to grow familiar. 

"We are getting near home, Raymond," said I. 

There stood the big tree under which we had encamped 
so long; there were the white cliffs that used to look down 
upon our tent when it stood at the bend of the creek ; there 
was the meadow in which our horses had grazed for weeks, 
and a little farther on, the prairie-dog village where I had 
beguiled many a languid hour in shooting the unfortunate 
inhabitants. 



302 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

"We are going to catch it now," said Raymond, turning 
his broad face up towards the sky. 

In truth the cliffs and the meadow, the stream and the 
groves, were darkening fast. Black masses of cloud were 
swelling up in the south, and the thunder was growling 
ominously. 

"We will 'camp there," I said, pointing to a grove 
of trees lower down the stream. Raymond and I turned 
towards it, but the Indian stopped and called earnestly 
after us. When we demanded what was the matter he 
said that the ghosts of two warriors were always among 
those trees, and that if we slept there they would scream 
and throw stones at us all night, and perhaps steal our 
horses before morning. Thinking it as well to humor him, 
we left behind us the haunt of these extraordinary ghosts, 
and passed on towards Chugwater, riding at full gallop, 
for the big drops began to patter down. Soon we came 
in sight of the poplar saplings that grew about the mouth 
of the little stream. We leaped to the ground, threw off 
our saddles, turned our horses loose, and drawing our knives 
began to slash among the bushes to cut twigs and branches 
for making a shelter against the rain. Bending down the 
taller saplings as they grew, we piled the young shoots 
upon them, and thus made a convenient pent-house; but 
our labor was needless. The storm scarcely touched us.. 
Half a mile on our right the rain was pouring down like a 
cataract, and the thunder roared over the prairie like a battery 
of cannon ; "while we by good fortune received only a few 
heavy drops from the skirt of the passing cloud. The weather 
cleared and the sun set gloriously. Sitting close under 
our leafy canopy we proceeded to discuss a substantial meal 
of ivasna which Weah-Washtay had given me. The In- 
dian had brought with him his pipe and a bag of shong- 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS. 30S 

sasha; so before lying down to sleep we sat for some time 
smoking together. First, however, our wide-mouthed friend 
had taken the precaution of carefully examining the neigh- 
borhood. He reported that eight men, counting them on 
his fingers, had been encamped there not long before, — 
Bisonette, Paul Dorion, Antoine Le Rouge, Richardson, 
and four others, whose names he could not tell. All this 
proved strictly correct. By what instinct he had arrived 
at such accurate conclusions, I am utterly at a loss to 
divine. 

It was still quite dark when I awoke and called Ray- 
mond. The Indian was already gone, having chosen to 
go on before us to the fort. Setting out after him, we 
rode for some time in complete darkness and when the 
sun at length rose, glowing like a fiery ball of copper, we 
were within ten miles of the fort. At length, from the 
summit of a sandy bluff we could see Fort Laramie, miles 
before us, standing by the side of the stream like a little gray 
speck, in the midst of the boundless desolation. I stopped 
my horse, and sat for a moment looking down upon it. It 
seemed to me the very centre of comfort and civilization. 
We were not long in approaching it, for we rode at speed 
the greater part of the way. Laramie Creek still inter- 
vened between us and the friendly walls. Entering the 
water at the point where we had struck upon the bank, we 
raised our feet to the saddle behind us, and thus kneeling 
as it were on horseback, passed dry-shod through the swift 
current. As we rode up the bank a number of men ap- 
peared in the gateway. Three of them came forward to 
meet us. In a moment I distinguished Shaw ; Henry 
Chatillon followed, with his face of manly simplicity and 
frankness, and Deslauriers came last, with a broad grin 
of welcome. The meeting was not on either side one of 



304 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

mere ceremony. For my own part, the change was a most 
agreeable one, from the society of savages and men little 
better than savages, to that of my gallant and high-minded 
companion, and our noble-hearted guide. My appearance 
was equally welcome to Shaw, who was beginning to enter- 
tain some uncomfortable surmises concerning me. 

Bordeaux greeted me cordially, and shouted to the cook. 
This functionary was a new acquisition, having lately come 
from Fort Pierre with the trading wagons. Whatever skill 
he might have boasted, he had not the most promising ma- 
terials to exercise it upon. He set before me, however, a 
breakfast of biscuit, coffee, and salt pork. It seemed like 
a new phase of existence to be seated once more on a 
bench with a knife and fork, a plate and teacup, and some- 
thing resembling a table before me. The coffee seemed 
delicious, and the bread was a most welcome novelty, since 
for three weeks I had tasted scarcely anything but meat, 
and that for the most part without salt. The meal also had 
the relish of good company, for opposite to me sat Shaw in 
elegant dishabille. If one is anxious thoroughly to appreci- 
ate the value of a congenial companion, he has only to 
spend a few weeks by himself in an Ogillallah village. 
And if he can contrive to add to his seclusion a debilitat- 
ing" and somewhat critical illness, his perceptions upon this 
subject will be rendered considerably more vivid. 

Shaw had been two or three weeks at the fort. I found 
him established in his old quarters, a large apartment usu- 
allv occupied bv the absent do//r^i-ois. In one comer was 
a soft pile of excellent buffalo-robes, and here I lay down. 
Shaw brought me three books. 

"Here," said he, "is your Shakspeare and Byron, and 
here is the Old Testament, which has as much poetry in 
it as the other two put together." 



PASSAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS- 305 

I chose the worst of the three, and for the greater part 
of that day I lay on the buffalo-robes, fairly revelling in 
the creations of that resplendent genius which has achieved 
no more signal triumph than that of half beguiling us to 
forget the unmanly character of its possessor. 



20 




'■< ~ 



CHAPTER XX. 



THE LONELY JOURNEY, 



ON the day of my arrival at Fort Laramie, Shaw and I 
were lounging on two buffalo-robes in the large apart- 
ment hospitably assigned to us; Henry Chatillon also was 
present, busy about the harness and weapons, which had 
been brought into the room, and two or three Indians were 
crouching on the floor, eying us with their fixed, unwaver- 
ing gaze. 

"I have been well off here," said Shaw, "in all respects 
but one ; there is no good sJiongsasJia to be had for love or 
money." 

I gave him a small leather bag containing some of ex- 
cellent quality which I had brought from the Black Hills. 
"Now, Henry," said he, "hand me Papin's chopping-board, 
or give it to that Indian, and let him cut the mixture; they 
understand it better than any white man." 

The Indian, without saying a word, mixed the bark and 
the tobacco in due proportions, filled the pipe, and lighted 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 307 

it. This done, my companion and I proceeded to deliber- 
ate on our future course of proceeding; first, however, Shaw 
acquainted me with some incidents which had occurred at 
the fort during my absence. 

About a week before, four men had arrived from beyond 
the mountains: Sublette, Reddick, and two others. Just 
before reaching the fort they had met a large party of In- 
dians, chiefly young men. All of them belonged to the 
village of our old friend Smoke, who, with his whole band 
of adherents, professed the greatest friendship for the 
whites. The travellers therefore approached and began to 
converse without the least suspicion. Suddenly, however, 
their bridles were seized, and they were ordered to dis- 
mount. Instead of complying, they lashed their horses, 
and broke away from the Indians. As they galloped off 
they heard a yell behind them, with a burst of derisive 
laughter, and the reports of several guns. None of them 
were hurt, though Reddick's bridle-rein was cut by a bullet 
within an inch of his hand. After this taste of Indian man- 
ners, they felt for the moment no disposition to encounter 
farther risks. They intended to pursue the route south- 
ward along the foot of the mountains to Bent's Fort; and 
as our plans coincided with theirs, they proposed to join 
forces. Finding, however, that I did not return, they 
grew impatient of inaction, forgot their late danger, and 
set out without us, promising to wait our arrival at 
Bent's Fort. From thence we were to make the long 
journey to the settlements in company, as the path was not 
a little dangerous, being infested by hostile Pawnees and 
OBmanches. 

We expected, on reaching Bent's Fort, to find there still 
another reinforcement. A young Kentuckian had come out 
to the mountains with Russel's party of California emi- 



308 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

grants. One of his chief objects, as he gave out, was to 
kill an Indian ; an exploit which he afterwards succeeded 
in achieving, much to the jeopardy of ourselves, and others 
who had to pass through the country of the dead Pawnee's 
enraged relatives. Having become disgusted with his emi- 
grant associates, he left them, and had some time before 
set out with a party of companions for the head of the 
Arkansas. He left us a letter, to say that he would wait 
until we arrived at Bent's Fort, and accompany us thence 
to the settlements. When however he came to the fort, 
he found there a party of forty men about to make the 
homeward journey, and wisely preferred to avail himself 
of so strong an escort. Sublette and his companions also 
joined this company; so that on reaching Bent's Fort, some 
six weeks after, we found ourselves deserted by our allies 
and thrown once more upon our own resources. 

On the fourth of August, early in the afternoon, we bade 
a final adieu to the hospitable gateway of Fort Laramie. 
Again Shaw and I were riding side by side on the prairie. 
For the first fifty miles we had companions with us: 
Troche, a trapper, and Rouville, a nondescript in the 
employ of the Fur Company, who were going to join the 
trader Bisonette at his encampment near the head of 
Horse Creek. We rode only six or eight miles that after- 
noon before we came to a little brook traversing the bar- 
ren prairie. All along its course grew copses of young 
wild-cherry trees, loaded with ripe fruit, and almost con- 
cealing the gliding thread of water with their dense growth. 
Here we encamped; and being too indolent to pitch our 
tent, we flung our saddles on the ground, spread a pair of 
buffalo-robes, lay down upon them, and began to smoke. 
Meanwhile Deslauriers busied himself with his frying-pan, 
and Raymond stood guard over the band of grazing horses. 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 309 

Deslauriers had an active assistant in Rouville, who pro- 
fessed great skill in the culinary art, and seizing upon a 
fork, began to lend his aid in cooking supper. Indeed, 
according to his own belief, Rouville was a man of uni- 
versal knowledge, and he lost no opportunity to display 
his manifold accomplishments. He had been a circus- 
rider at St. Louis, and once he rode round Fort Laramie 
on his head, to the utter bewilderment of the Indians. 
He was also noted as the wit of the fort, and as he had 
considerable humor and abundant vivacity, he contributed 
more that night to the liveliness of the camp than all the 
rest of the party put together. At one instant he would 
kneel by Deslauriers, instructing him in the true method 
of frying antelope-steaks, then he would come and seat 
himself at our side, dilating upon the correct fashion of 
braiding up a horse's tail, telling apocryphal stories how 
he had killed a buffalo-bull with a knife, having first cut 
off his tail when at full speed, or relating whimsical anec- 
dotes of the bourgeois Papin. At last he snatched up a 
volume of Shakspeare that was lying on the grass, and 
halted and stumbled through a line or two to prove that 
he could read. He went gambolling about the camp, chat- 
tering like some frolicsome ape; and whatever he was 
doing at one moment, the presumption was a sure one 
that he would not be doing it the next. His companion 
Troche sat silently on the grass, not speaking a word, 
but keeping a vigilant eye on a very ugly little Utah 
squaw, of whom he was extremely jealous. 

On the next day we travelled farther, crossing the wide, 
sterile basin called "Goche's Hole." Towards night we 
became involved among ravines; and being unable to find 
water, our journey was protracted to a very late hour. On 
the next morning we had to pass a long line of bluffs. 



3IO THE OREGON TRAIL. 

whose raw sides, wrought upon by rains and storms, were 
of a ghastly whiteness most oppressive to the sight. As 
we ascended a gap in these hills, the way was marked by 
huge footprints, like those of a human giant. They were 
the tracks of the grizzly bear, of which we had also seen 
abundance on the day before. Immediately after this we 
were crossing a barren plain, spreading in long and gentle 
undulations to the horizon. Though the sun was bright, 
there was a light haze in the atmosphere. The distant 
hills assumed strange, distorted forms in the mirage, and 
the edge of the horizon was continually changing its as- 
pect. Shaw and I were riding together, and Henry Chatillon 
was a few rods before us, when he stopped his horse suddenly, 
and turning round with the peculiar earnest expression 
which he always wore when excited, called us to come for- 
ward. We galloped to his side. Henry pointed towards a 
black speck on the gray swell of the prairie, apparently 
about a mile off. "It must be a bear," said he; "come, 
now we shall all have some sport. Better fun to fight 
him than to fight an old buffalo-bull; grizzly bear so 
strong and smart." 

So we all galloped forward together, prepared for a hard 
fight; for these bears, though clumsy in appearance, are 
incredibly fierce and active. The swell of the prairie con- 
cealed the black object from our view. Immediately after, 
it appeared again. But now it seemed very near to us ; 
and as we looked at it in astonishment, it suddenly sepa- 
rated into two parts, each of which took wing and flew 
away. We stopped our horses and looked at Henry, whose 
face exhibited a curious mixture of mirth and mortifica- 
tion. His eye had been so completely deceived by the 
peculiar atmosphere that he had mistaken two large crows 
at the distance of fifty rods for a grizzly bear a mile off. 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 31 1 

To the journey's end Henry never heard the last of the 
grizzly bear with wings. 

In the afternoon we came to the foot of a considerable 
hill. As we ascended it Rouville began to ask questions 
concerning our condition and prospects at home, and Shaw 
was edifying him with an account of an imaginary wife and 
child, to whicli he listened with implicit faith. Reaching 
the top of the hill, we saw the windings of Horse Creek 
on the plains below us, and a little on the left we could 
distinguish the camp of Bisonette among the trees and 
copses along the course of the stream. Rouville' s face 
assumed just then a ludicrously blank expression. We 
inquired what was the matter; when it appeared that Bis- 
onette had sent him from this place to Fort Laramie with 
the sole object of bringing back a supply of tobacco. Our 
rattlebrain friend, from the time of his reaching the fort 
up to the present moment, had entirely forgotten the object 
of his journey, and had ridden a dangerous hundred miles 
for nothing. Descending to Horse Creek we forded it, and 
on the opposite bank a solitary Indian sat on horseback 
under a tree. He said nothing, but turned and led the 
way towards the camp. Bisonette had made choice of an 
admirable position. The stream, with its thick growth of 
trees, inclosed on three sides a wide green meadow, where 
about forty Dakota lodges were pitched in a circle, and 
beyond them a few lodges of the friendly Cheyennes. 
Bisonette himself lived in the Indian manner. Riding; 
up to his lodge, we found him seated at the head of it, 
surrounded by various appliances of comfort not common 
on the prairie. His squaw was near him, and rosy chil- 
dren were scrambling about in printed calico gowns; Paul 
Dorion, also, with his leathery face and old white capote, 
was seated in the lodge, together with Antoine Le Rouge, 



312 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



a half-breed Pawnee, Sibille, a trader, and several other 
white men. 

"It will do you no harm, " said Bisonette, "to stay here 
with us for a day or two, before you start for the Pueblo." 

We accepted the invi- 
tation, and pitched our 
tent on a rising ground 
above the camp and close 
to the trees. Bisonette 
soon invited us to a feast, 
and we suffered abund- 
ance of the same sort of 
attention from his Indian 
associates. The reader 
may possibly recollect 
that when I joined the 
Indian village, beyond 
the Black Hills, I found 
that a few families were 
absent, having declined 
to pass the mountains 
along with the rest. The 
Indians in Bisonette's 
camp consisted of these very families, and many of them 
came to me that evening to inquire after their relatives and 
friends. They were not a little mortified to learn that 
while they, from their own timidity and indolence, were 
almost in a starving condition, the rest of the village had 
provided their lodges for the next season, laid in a great 
stock of provisions, and were living in abundance. Biso- 
nette's companions had been sustaining themselves for 
some time on wild cherries, which the squaws pounded, 
stones and all, and spread on buffalo-robes to dry in the 




0. 






n 



THE LONELY JOURNEY 313 

sun ; they were then eaten without further preparation, or 
used as an ingredient in various delectable compounds. 

On the next day the camp was in commotion with a new 
arrival. A single Indian had come with his family from 
the Arkansas. As he passed among the lodges he put on 
an expression of unusual dignity and importance, and gave 
out that he had brought great news to tell the whites. 
Soon after the squaws had pitched his lodge, he sent his 
little son to invite all the white men, and all the more 
distinguished Indians to a feast. The guests arrived and 
sat wedged together, shoulder to shoulder, within the hot 
and suffocating lodge. The Stabber, for that was our en- 
tertainer's name, had killed an old buffalo-bull on his way. 
This veteran's boiled tripe, tougher than leather, formed 
the main item of the repast. For the rest, it consisted of 
wild cherries and grease boiled together in a large copper 
kettle. The feast was distributed, and for a moment all 
was silent, strenuous exertion; then each guest, though 
with one or two exceptions, turned his wooden dish bot- 
tom upwards to prove that he had done full justice to his 
entertainer's hospitality. The Stabber next produced his 
chopping-board, on which he prepared the mixture for 
smoking, and filled several pipes, which circulated among 
the company. This done, he seated himself upright on 
his couch, and began with much gesticulation to tell his 
story. I will not repeat his childish jargon. It was so 
entangled, like the greater part of an Indian's stories, 
with absurd and contradictory details, that it was almost 
impossible to disengage from it a single particle of truth. 
All that we could gather was the following: — 

He had been on the Arkansas, and there he had seen 
six great war-parties of whites. He had never believed 
before that the whole world contained half so many white 



314 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

men. They all had large horses, long knives, and short 
rifles, and some of them were dressed alike, in the most splen- 
did war-dresses he had ever seen. From this account it was 
clear that bodies of dragoons and perhaps also of volunteer 
cavalry had passed up the Arkansas. The Stabber had 
also seen a great many of the white lodges of the Mene 
aska, drawn by their long-horned buffalo. These could 
be nothing else than covered ox-wagons used no doubt in 
transporting stores for the troops. Soon after seeing this, 
our host had met an Indian who had lately come from 
among the Camanches, who had told him that all the 
Mexicans had gone out to a great buffalo hunt; that the 
Americans had hid themselves in a ravine; and that when 
the Mexicans had shot away all their arrows, the Ameri- 
cans fired their guns, raised their war-whoop, rushed out; 
and killed them all. We could only infer from this that 
war had been declared with Mexico, and a battle fought 
in which the Americans were victorious. When, some 
weeks after, we arrived at the Pueblo, we heard of Gen- 
eral Kearney's march up the Arkansas, and of General 
Taylor's victories at Matamoras. 

As the sun was setting that evening a crowd gathered on 
the plain by the side of our tent, to try the speed of their 
horses. These were of every shape, size, and color. Some 
came from California, some from the States, some from 
among the mountains, and some from the wild bands of the 
prairie. They were of every hue, white, black, red, and 
gray, or mottled and clouded with a strange variety of colors. 
They all had a wild and startled look, very different from 
the sober aspect of a well-bred city steed. Those most 
noted for swiftness and spirit were decorated with eagle 
feathers dangling from their manes and tails. Fifty or 
sixty Dakota were present, wrapped from head to foot in 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 



315 






their hea\y '-obes of whitened hide. There was also a 
considerable number of the Cheyennes, manv of whom 
wore i;"aud}' Me.xican ponchos, swathed around their shoul- 
ders, but leaving" the right arm bare. Mingled among the 
crowd of Indians was a number of Canadians, chiefly in 
the emploN- of Bisonette, — men whose home is the wilder- 
ness, and who love the camp-fire better than the domestic 
hearth. The\" are con- 
tented and happv in the 
midst of hardship, priva- 
tion, and danger. Their 
cheerfulness and gayety is 
irrepressible, and no peo- 
ple on earth understand 
better how "to daff the 
world aside and bid it 
pass." Besides these, 
were two or three half- 
breeds, a race of rather 
extraordinary composition, 
being, according to the 

common saying, half Indian, half white man, and half devil. 
Antoine Le Rouge was the most conspicuous among them, 
with his loose trousers and fluttering calico shirt. A 
handkerchief was bound round his head to confine his 
black, snaky hair, and his small eves twinkled beneath it 
with a mischievous lustre. He had a fine cream-colored 
horse, whose speed he must needs try along with the rest. 
So he threw off the rude high-peaked saddle, and substi- 
tuting a piece of buffalo-robe, leaped lightly into his seat. 
The space was cleared, the word was given, and he and 
his Indian rival darted out like lightning from among the 
crowd, each stretching forward over his horse's neck and 




f t% ^ • 



\ \ 



3l6 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

plying his heavy Indian whip with might and main. A 
moment, and both were lost in the gloom ; but Antoine 
soon came riding back victorious, exultingly patting the 
neck of his quivering and panting horse. 

About midnight, as I lay asleep, wrapped in a buffalo- 
robe on the ground by the side of our cart, Raymond 
came and woke me. Something, he said, was going for- 
ward which I would like to see. Looking down into the 
camp, I saw on the farther side of it a great number of 
Indians gathered about a fire, the bright glare of which 
made them visible through the thick darkness; while from 
the midst proceeded a loud, measured chant, which would 
have killed Paganini outright, broken occasionally by a burst 
of sharp yells. I gathered the robe around me, for the 
night was cold, and walked down to the spot. The dark 
throng of Indians was so dense that they almost inter- 
cepted the light of the flame. As I was pushing among 
them with little ceremony, a chief interposed himself, and 
I was given to understand that a white man must not ap- 
proach the scene of their solemnities too closely. By passing 
round to the other side, where there was a little opening 
in the crowd, I could see clearly what was going forward, 
without intruding my unhallowed presence into the inner 
circle. The society of the " Strong Hearts " were engaged 
in one of their dances. The " Strong Hearts " are a war- 
like association, comprising men of both the Dakota and 
Cheyenne nations, and entirely composed, or supposed to 
be so, of young braves of the highest mettle. Its funda- 
mental principle is the admirable one of never retreating 
from any enterprise once begun. All these Indian associa- 
tions have a tutelary spirit. That of the " Strong Hearts " 
is embodied in the fox, an animal which white men would 
hardly have selected for a similar purpose, though his subtle 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 31/ 

character agrees well enough with an Indian's notions of 
what is honorable in warfare. The dancers were circling 
round and round the fire, each figure brightly illumined 
at one moment by the yellow light, and at the next drawn 
in blackest shadow as it passed between the flame and 
the spectator. They would imitate with the most ludi- 
crous exactness the motions and voice of their sly patron the 
fox. Then a startling yell would be given. Many other 
warriors would leap into the ring, and with faces upturned 
towards the starless sky, they would all stamp and whoop, 
and brandish their weapons like so many frantic devils. 

We remained here till the next afternoon. My com- 
panion and I with our three attendants then set out for 
the Pueblo, a distance of three hundred miles, and we 
supposed the journey would occupy about a fortnight. 
During this time we all hoped that we might not meet a 
single human being, for should we encounter any, they 
would in all probability be enemies, in whose eyes our 
rifles would be our only passports. For the first two days 
nothing worth mentioning took place. On the third morn- 
ing, however, an untoward incident occurred. We were 
encamped by the side of a little brook in an extensive 
hollow of the plain. Deslauriers was up long before day- 
light, and before he began to prepare breakfast he turned 
loose all the horses, as in duty bound. There was a cold 
mist clinging close to the ground, and by the time the 
rest of us were awake the animals were invisible. It was 
only after a long and anxious search that we could discover 
by their tracks the direction they had taken. They had all 
set off for Fort Laramie, following the guidance of a muti- 
nous old mule; and though many of them were hobbled, 
they travelled three miles before they could be overtaken 
and driven back. 



3l8 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

For two or three clays we were passing over an arid 
desert. The only vegetation was a few tufts of short 
grass, dried and shrivelled by the heat. There was abun- 
dance of strange insects and reptiles. Huge crickets, 
black and bottle-green, and wingless grasshoppers of the 
most extravagant dimensions, were tumbling about our 
horses' feet, and lizards without number darting like light- 
ning among the tufts of grass. The most curious animal, 
however, was that commonly called the horned-frog. I caught 
one of them and consigned him to the care of Deslauriers, 
who tied him up in a moccasin. About a month after this 
I examined the prisoner's condition, and finding him still 
lively and active, I provided him with a cage of buffalo- 
hide, which was hung up in the cart. In this manner he 
arrived safely at the settlements. From thence he trav- 
elled the whole way to Boston, packed closely in a trunk, 
being regaled with fresh air regularly every night. When 
he reached his designation he was deposited under a glass 
case, where he sat for some months in great tranquillity, 
alternately dilating and contracting his white throat to the 
admiration of his visitors. At length, one morning about 
the middle of winter, he gave up the ghost, and he now 
occupies a bottle of alcohol in the Agassiz Museum. His 
death was attributed to starvation, — a very probable con- 
clusion, since for six months he had taken no food what- 
ever, though the sympathy of his juvenile admirers had 
tempted his palate with a great variety of delicacies. We 
found also animals of a somewhat larger growth. The 
number of prairie-dogs was astounding. Frequently the 
hard and dry plain was thickly covered, for miles together, 
with the little mounds which they make at the mouth of 
their burrows, and small squeaking voices yelped at us 
as we passed along. The noses of the inhabitants were 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 319 



just visible at the mouth of their holes, but no sooner 
was their curiosity satisfied than they would instantly van- 
ish. Some of the bolder dogs — -though in fact they are 
no dogs at all, but little marmots rather smaller than 
a rabbit — would sit yelping at us on the top of their 
mounds, jerking their tails emphatically with every shrill 
cry they uttered. As the danger drew nearer they would 
wheel about, toss their heels into the air, and dive in a 
twinkling into their burrows. Towards sunset, and espe- 
cially if rain was threatening, the whole community made 
their appearance above ground. We saw them gath- 
ered in large knots around the burrow of some favorite 
citizen. There they would all sit erect, their tails spread 
out on the ground, and their paws hanging down before 
their white breasts, chattering and squeaking with the ut- 
most vivacity upon some topic of common interest, while 
the proprietor of the burrow sat on the top of his mound, 
looking down with a complacent countenance on the en- 
joyment of his guests. Meanwhile others ran about from 
burrow to burrow, as if on some errand of the last impor- 
tance to their subterranean commonwealth. The snakes are 
apparently the prairie-dog's worst enemies; at least I think 
too well of the latter to suppose that they associate on 
friendly terms with these slimy intruders, which may be 
seen at all times basking among their holes, into which 
they always retreat when disturbed. Small owls, with 
wise and grave countenances, also make their abode with 
the prairie-dogs, though on what terms they live together 
I could never ascertain. 

On the fifth day after leaving Bisonette's camp, we saw, 
late in the afternoon, what we supposed to be a consider- 
able stream, but on approaching it, we found to our disap- 
pointment, nothing but a dry bed of sand, into which the 



320 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

water had sunk and disappeared. We separated, some rid- 
ing in one direction and some in another, along its course. 
Still we found no traces of water, not even so much as a 
wet spot in the sand. The old cotton-wood trees that grew 
along the bank, lamentably abused by lightning and tem- 
pest, were withering with the drought, and on the dead 
limbs, at the summit of the tallest, half a dozen crows 
were hoarsely cawing, like birds of evil omen. We had 
no alternative but to keep on. There was no water nearer 
than the South Fork of the Platte, about ten miles distant. 
We moved forward, angry and silent, over a desert as flat 
as the outspread ocean. 

The sky had been obscured since the morning by thin 
mists and vapors, but now vast piles of clouds were gath- 
ered together in the west. They rose to a great height 
above the horizon, and looking up at them I distinguished 
one mass darker than the rest, and of a peculiar conical 
form. I happened to look again, and still could see it as 
before. At some moments it was dimly visible, at others 
its outline was sharp and distinct; but while the clouds 
around it were shifting, changing, and dissolving away, 
it still towered aloft in the midst of them, fixed and im- 
movable. It must, thought I, be the summit of a moun- 
tain; and yet its height staggered me. My conclusion 
was right, however. It was Long's Peak, once believed 
to be one of the highest of the Rocky Mountain chain, 
though more recent discoveries have proved the contrary. 
The thickening gloom soon hid it from view, and we never 
saw it again, for on the following day, and for some time 
after, the air was so full of mist that the view of distant 
objects was entirely cut off. 

It grew very late. Turning from our direct course, we 
made for the river at its nearest point, though in the utter 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 32I 

darkness it was not easy to direct our way with much pre- 
cision. Raymond rode on one side and Henry on the other. 
We heard each of them shouting that he had come upon a 
deep ravine. We steered at random between Scylla and 
Charybdis, and soon after became as it seemed inextri- 
cably involved, with deep chasms all around us, while the 
darkness was such that we could not see a rod in any 
direction. We partially extricated ourselves by scrambling, 
cart and all, through a shallow ravine. We came next to 
a steep descent, down which we plunged without well 
knowing what was at the bottom. There was a great 
crackling of sticks and dry twigs. Over our heads were 
certain large shadowy objects; and in front something 
like the faint gleaming of a dark sheet of water. Ray- 
mond ran his horse against a tree; Henry alighted, and, 
feeling on the ground, declared that there was grass enough 
for the horses. Before taking off his saddle, each man led 
his own horses down to the water in the best way he could. 
Then picketing two or three of the evil-disposed, we turned 
the rest loose, and lay down among the dry sticks to sleep. 
In the morning we found ourselves close to the South Fork 
of the Platte, on a spot surrounded by bushes and rank 
grass. Compensating ourselves with a hearty breakfast for 
the ill-fare of the previous night, we set forward again on 
our journey. When only two or three rods from the camp 
I saw Shaw stop his mule, level his gun, and fire at some 
object in the grass. Deslauriers next jumped forward, and 
began to dance about, belaboring the unseen enemy with 
a whip. Then he stooped down, and drew out of the grass 
by the neck a large rattlesnake, with his head completely 
shattered by Shaw's bullet. As Deslauriers held him out 
at arm's length with an exulting grin, his tail, which still 
kept slowly writhing about, almost touched the ground; 

2i 



322 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

and his body in the largest part was as thick as a stout 
man's arm. He had fourteen rattles, but the end of his 
tail was blunted, as if he could once have boasted of many 
more. From this time till we reached the Pueblo, we 
killed at least four or five of these snakes every day, as 
they lay coiled and rattling on the hot sand. Shaw was 
the Saint Patrick of the party, and whenever he killed a 
snake he pulled off his tail and stored it away in his 
bullet-pouch, which was soon crammed with an edifying 
collection of rattles, great and small. Deslauriers with 
his whip also came in for a share of praise. A day or two 
after this, he triumphantly produced a small snake about 
a span and a half long, with one infant rattle at the end 
of his tail. 

We forded the South Fork of the Platte. On its farther 
bank were the traces of a very large camp of Arapahoes. 
The ashes of some three hundred fires were visible among 
the scattered trees, together with the remains of sweating 
lodges, and all the other appurtenances of a permanent camp. 
The place, however, had been for some months deserted. 
A few miles farther on we found more recent signs of In- 
dians, — the trail of two or three lodges which had evidently 
passed the day before; every footprint was perfectly dis- 
tinct in the dry, dusty soil. We noticed in particular the 
track of one moccasin, upon the sole of which its economi- 
cal proprietor had placed a large patch. These signs gave 
us but little uneasiness, as the number of the warriors 
scarcely exceeded that of our own party. At noon we 
rested under the walls of a large fort, built in these soli- 
tudes some years since by M. St. Vrain. It was now 
abandoned and fast falling into ruin. The walls of un- 
baked bricks were cracked from top to bottom. Our horses 
recoiled in terror from the neglected entrance, where the 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 323 

heavy gates were torn from their hinges and flung down. 
The area within was overgrown with weeds, and the long 
ranges of apartments once occupied by the motley con- 
course of traders, Canadians, and squaws, were now mis- 
erably dilapidated. Twelve miles farther on, near the 
spot where we encamped, were the remains of another 
fort, standing in melancholy desertion and neglect. 

Early on the following morning we made a startling dis- 
covery. We passed close by a large deserted encampment of 
Arapahoes. There were about fifty fires still smouldering on 
the ground, and it was evident from numerous signs that the 
Indians must have left the place within two hours of our 
reaching it. Their trail crossed our own, at right angles, 
and led in the direction of a line of hills, half a mile 
on our left. There were women and children in the 
party, which would have greatly diminished the danger 
of encountering them. Henry Chatillon examined the 
encampment and the trail with a very professional and 
business-like air. 

"Supposing we had met them, Henry? " said I. 

"Why, "said he, "we hold out our hands to them, and 
give them all we've got; they take away everything and 
then I believe they no kill us. Perhaps," added he, look- 
ing up with a quiet, unchanged face, "perhaps we no let 
them rob us. Maybe before they come near, we have a 
chance to get into a ravine, or under the bank of the 
river; then, you know, we fight them." 

About noon on that day we reached Cherry Creek. Here 
was a great abundance of wild-cherries, plums, gooseberries, 
and currants. The stream, however, like most of the others 
which we passed, was dried up with the heat, and we had 
to dig holes in the sand to find water for ourselves and our 
horses. Two days after, we left the banks of the creek. 



324 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

which we had been following for some time, and began to 
cross the high dividing ridge which separates the waters of 
the Platte from those of the Arkansas. The scenery was 
altogether changed. In place of the burning plains, we 
passed through rough and savage glens, and among hills 
crowned with a dreary growth of pines. We encamped 
among these solitudes on the night of the sixteenth of 
August. A tempest was threatening. The sun went down 
among volumes of jet-black cloud, edged with a bloody 
red. But in spite of these portentous signs we neglected 
to put up the tent, and being extremely fatigued, lay 
down on the ground and fell asleep. The storm broke 
about midnight, and we pitched the tent amid darkness 
and confusion. In the morning all was fair again, and 
Pike's Peak, white with snow, was towering above the 
wilderness afar off. 

We pushed through an extensive tract of pine woods. 
Large black-squirrels were leaping among the branches. 
From the farther edge of this forest we saw the prairie 
again, hollowed out before us into a vast basin, and about 
a mile in front we could discern a little black speck mov- 
ing upon its surface. It could be nothing but a buffalo. 
Henry primed his rifle afresh and galloped forward. To 
the left of the animal was a low rocky mound, of which 
Henry availed himself in making his approach. After a 
short time we heard the faint report of the rifle. The 
bull, mortally wounded from a distance of nearly three 
hundred yards, ran wildly round and round in a circle. 
Shaw and I then galloped forward, and passing him as he 
ran, foaming with rage and pain, discharged our pistols 
into his side. Once or twice he rushed furiously upon us, 
but his strength was rapidly exhausted. Down he' fell on 
his knees. For one instant he glared up at his enemies, 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 325 

with burning eyes, through his black, tangled mane, and 
then rolled over on his side. Though gaunt and thin, he 
was larger and heavier than the largest ox. Foam and 
blood flew together from his nostrils as he lay bellowing 
and pawing the ground, tearing up grass and earth with 
his hoofs. His sides rose and fell like a vast pair of 
bellows, the blood spouting up m jets from the bullet- 
holes. Suddenly his glaring eyes became like a lifeless 
jelly. He lay motionless on the ground. Henry stooped 
over him, and making an incision with his knife, pro- 
nounced the meat too rank and tough for use; so, disap- 
pointed in our hopes of an addition to our stock of 
provisions, we rode away and left the carcass to the 
wolves. 

In the afternoon we saw the mountains rising like a 
gigantic wall at no great distance on our right. '' i)es 
sanvagcs ! dcs saitvagcs l'' exclaimed Deslauriers, looking 
round with a frightened face, and pointing with his whip 
towards the foot of the mountains. In fact, we could see at 
a distance a number of little black specks, like horsemen in 
rapid motion. Henry Chatillon, with Shaw and myself 
galloped towards them to reconnoitre, when to our amuse- 
ment we saw the supposed Arapahoes resolved into the 
black tops of some pine-trees which grew along a ravine. 
The summits of these pines, just visible above the verge 
of the prairie, and seeming to move as we ourselves were 
advancing, looked exactly like a line of horsemen. 

We encamped among ravines and hollows, through which 
a little brook was foaming angrily. Before sunrise in the 
morning the snow-covered mountains were beautifully tinged 
with a delicate rose color. A noble spectacle awaited us as 
we moved forward. Six or eight miles on our right, Pike's 
Peak and his giant brethren rose out of the level prairie, as 



326 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

if springing from the bed of the ocean. From their sum- 
mits down to the plain below they were involved in a 
mantle of clouds, in restless motion, as if urged by strong 
winds. For one instant some snowy peak, towering in 
awful solitude, would be disclosed to view. As the clouds 
broke along the mountain, we could see the dreary forests, 
the tremendous precipices, the white patches of snow, the 
gulfs and chasms as black as night, all revealed for an 
instant, and then disappearing from the view. 

On the day after, we had left the mountains at some 
distance. A black cloud descended upon them, and a tre- 
mendous explosion of thunder followed, reverberating among 
the precipices. In a few moments everything grew black, 
and the rain poured down like a cataract. We got under 
an old cotton-wood tree, which stood by the side of a 
stream, and waited there till the rage of the torrent had 
passed. 

The clouds opened at the point where they first had 
gathered, and the whole sublime congregation of mountains 
was bathed at once in warm sunshine. They seemed more 
like some vision of eastern romance than like a reality of 
that wilderness; all were melted together into a soft deli- 
cious blue, as voluptuous as the sky of Naples or the trans- 
parent sea that washes the sunny cliffs of Capri. On the 
left the sky was still of an inky blackness; but two con- 
centric rainbows stood in bright relief against it, while 
far in front the ragged clouds still streamed before the 
wind, and the retreating thunder muttered angrily. 

Through that afternoon and the next morning we were 
passing down the banks of the stream, called "Boiling 
Spring Creek," from the boiling spring whose waters flow 
into it. When we stopped at noon, we were within six 
or eight miles of the Pueblo. Setting out again, we found 



THE LONELY JOURNEY. 



327 



by the fresh tracks that a horseman had just been out to 
reconnoitre us; he had circled half round the camp, and 
then galloped back at full speed for the Pueblo. What 
made him so shy of us we could not conceive. After an 
hour's ride we reached the edge of a hill, from which a 
welcome sight greeted us. The Arkansas ran along the 
valley below, among woods and groves, and closely nestled 
in the midst of wide corn-fields and green meadows, where 
cattle were grazing, rose the low mud walls of the Pueblo. 




CHAPTER XXI. 



THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FORT. 




-•vAv>.-., ^ iTTE approached the gate 

» » of the Pueblo. It was 
a wretched species of fort, of 
most primitive construction, 
being nothing more than a 
large square inclosure, sur- 
rounded by a wall of adobe, 
miserably cracked and di- 
lapidated. The slender pick- 
ets that surmounted it were 
half broken down, and the 
gate dangled on its wooden 
hinges so loosely that to 
open or shut it seemed likely 
to fling it down altogether. 
Two or three squalid Mexi- 
cans, with their broad hats, and their vile faces overgrown 
with hair, were lounging about the bank of the river in 
front of it. They disappeared as they saw us approach; 
and as we rode up to the gate, a light, active little figure 
came out to meet us. It was our old friend Richard. 
He had come from Fort Laramie on a trading expedition 
to Taos ; but finding when he reached the Pueblo that the 
war would prevent his going farther, he was quietly wait- 
ing till the conquest of the country should allow him to 









-L 



"?,. 



THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FORT. 329 

proceed. He seemed to feel bound to do the honors of 
the place. Shaking us warmly by the hand, he led the 
way into the area. 

Here we saw his large Santa Fe wagons standing to- 
gether. A few squaws and Spanish women, and a few 
Mexicans, as mean and miserable as the place itself, were 
lazily sauntering about. Richard conducted us to the state 
apartment of the Pueblo, a small mud room, very neatly 
finished, considering the material, and garnished with a 
crucifix, a looking-glass, a picture of the Virgin, and a 
rusty horse-pistol. There were no chairs, but instead of 
them a number of chests and boxes ranged about the 
room. There was another room beyond, less sumptuously 
decorated, and here three or four Spanish girls, one of 
them very pretty, were baking cakes at a mud fireplace 
in the corner. They brought out a poncho, which they 
spread upon the floor by way of table-cloth. A supper, 
which seemed to us luxurious, was soon laid out upon it, 
and folded buffalo-robes were placed around it to receive 
the guests. Two or three Americans besides ourselves 
were present. We sat down in Turkish fashion, and began 
to ask the news. Richard told us that, about three weeks 
before. General Kearney's army had left Bent's Fort to 
march against Santa Fe ; that when last heard from they 
were approaching the defiles that led to the city. One 
of the Americans produced a dingy newspaper, contain- 
ing an account of the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de 
la Palma. While we were discussing these matters the 
doorway was darkened by a tall, shambling fellow, who 
stood with his hands in his pockets taking a leisurely 
survey of the premises before he entered. He wore brown 
homespun trousers, much too short for his legs, and a 
pistol and bowie-knife stuck in his belt. His head and 



330 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



one eye were enveloped in a huge bandage of linen. Hav- 
ing completed his observations, he came slouching in, and 
sat down on a chest. Eight or ten more of the same stamp 
followed, and very coolly arranging themselves about the 

room began to stare at 
the company. We were 
forcibly reminded of the 
Oregon emigrants, though 
these unwelcome visitors 
had a certain glitter of 
the eye, and a compres- 
sion of the lips which 
distinguished them from 
our old acquaintances 
of the prairie. They be- 
gan to catechise us at 
once, inquiring whence 
we had come, what we 
meant to do next, and 
what were our prospects 
in life. 

The man with the ban- 
daged head had met with an untoward accident a few days 
before. He was going down to the river to bring water, 
and was pushing through the young willows which covered 
the low ground, when he came unawares upon a grizzly bear, 
which, having just eaten a buffalo-bull, had lain down to 
sleep off the meal. The bear rose on his hind legs, and gave 
the intruder such a blow with his paw that he laid his fore- 
head entirely bare, clawed off the front of his scalp, and 
narrowly missed one of his eyes. Fortunately he was not 
in a very pugnacious mood, being surfeited with his late 
meal. The man's companions, who were close behind, raised 




THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FORT. 33 1 

a shout, and the bear walked away, crushing down the 
willows in his leisurely retreat. 

These men belonged to a party of Mormons, who, out of 
a well-grounded fear of the other emigrants, had postponed 
leaving the settlements until all the rest were gone. On 
account of this delay, they did not reach Fort Laramie 
until it was too late to continue their journey to California. 
Hearing that there was good land at the head of the Arkan- 
sas, they crossed over under the guidance of Richard, and 
were now preparing to spend the winter at a spot about half 
a mile from the Pueblo. 

When we took leave of Richard it was near sunset. 
Passing out of the gate, we could look down the little 
valley of the Arkansas; a beautiful scene, and doubly so 
to our eyes, so long accustomed to deserts and mountains. 
Tall woods lined the river, with green meadows on either 
hand; and high bluffs, quietly basking in the sunlight, 
flanked the narrow valley. A Mexican on horseback was 
driving a herd of cattle towards the gate, and our little 
white tent, which the men had pitched under a tree in 
the meadow, made a pleasing feature in the scene. When 
we reached it we found that Richard had sent a Mexican 
to bring us an abundant supply of green corn and vege- 
tables and invite us to help ourselves to whatever we 
wanted from the fields around the Pueblo. 

The inhabitants were in daily apprehension of an inroad 
from more formidable consumers than we. Every year, at 
the time when the corn begins to ripen, the Arapahoes, 
to the number of several thousands, come and encamp around 
the Pueblo. The handful of white men, who are entirely 
at the mercy of this swarm of barbarians, choose to make 
a merit of necessity; they come forward very cordially, 
shake them by the hand, and tell them that the harvest 



332 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

is entirely at their disposal. The Arapahoes take them at 
their word, help themselves most liberally, and usually 
turn their horses into the cornfields afterwards. They 
have the foresight, however, to leave enough of the crops 
untouched to serve as an inducement for planting the fields 
again for their benefit in the next spring. 

The human race in this part of the world is separated 
into three divisions, arranged in the order of their merits : 
white men, Indians, and Mexicans; to the latter of whom 
the honorable title of "whites" is by no means conceded. 

In spite of the warm sunset of that evening, the next 
morning was a dreary and cheerless one. It rained steadily, 
clouds resting upon the very tree-tops. We crossed the 
river to visit the Mormon settlement. As we passed through 
the water several trappers on horseback entered it from the 
other side. Their buckskin frocks were soaked through 
by the rain, and clung fast to their limbs with a most 
clammy and uncomfortable look. The water was trick- 
ling down their faces, and dropping from the ends of their 
rifles and from the traps which each carried at the pom- 
mel of his saddle. Horses and all, they had a disconso- 
late and woe-begone appearance, which we could not help 
laughing at, forgetting how often we ourselves had been 
in a similar plight. 

After half an hour's riding we saw the white wagons of 
the Mormons drawn up among the trees. Axes were sound- 
ing, trees falling, and log-huts rising along the edge of the 
woods and upon the adjoining meadow. As we came up 
the Mormons left their work, seated themselves on the tim- 
ber around us, and began earnestly to discuss points of the- 
ology, complain of the ill-usage they had received from the 
"Gentiles," and sound a lamentation over the loss of their 
great temple of Nauvoo, After remaining with them an hour 



THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FORT. 333 

we rode back to our camp, happy that the settlements had 
been delivered from the presence of such blind and desperate 
fanatics. 

On the following morning we left the Pueblo for Bent's 
Fort. The conduct of Raymond had lately been less 
satisfactory than before, and we had discharged him as 
soon as we arrived at the former place, so that the party, 
ourselves included, was now reduced to four. There was 
some uncertainty as to our future course. The trail be- 
tween Bent's Fort and the settlements, a distance com- 
puted at six hundred miles, was at this time in a dangerous 
state; for since the passage of General Kearney's army, 
great numbers of hostile Indians, chiefly Pawnees and 
Camanches, had gathered about some parts of it. They 
became soon after so numerous and audacious that scarcely 
a single party, however large, passed between the fort and 
the frontier without some token of their hostility. The 
newspapers of the time sufficiently display this state of 
things. Many men were killed, and great numbers of horses 
and mules carried off. Not long since I met with a young 
man, who, during the autumn came from Santa Fe to Bent's 
Fort, where he found a party of seventy men, who thought 
themselves too weak to go down to the settlements alone, 
and were waiting there for a reinforcement. Though this 
excessive timidity proves the ignorance of the men, it may 
also evince the state of alarm which prevailed in the coun- 
try. When we were there in the month of August, the 
danger had not become so great. There was nothing very 
attractive in the neighborhood. We supposed, moreover, 
that we might wait there half the winter without finding 
any party to go down with us ; for Sublette and the others 
whom we had relied upon had, as Richard told us, already 
left Bent's Fort. Thus far on our journey Fortune had 



334 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

kindly befriended us. We resolved therefore to take advan- 
tage of her gracious mood, and trusting for a continuance 
of her favors, to set out with Henry and Deslauriers, and 
run the gauntlet of the Indians in the best way we could. 

Bent's Fort stands on the river, about seventy-five 
miles below the Pueblo. At noon of the third day we 
arrived within three or four miles of it, pitched our tent 
under a tree, hung our looking-glasses against its trunk, 
and having made our primitive toilet, rode towards the 
fort. We soon came in sight of it, for it is visible from 
a considerable distance, standing with its high clay walls 
in the midst of the scorching plains. It seemed as if a 
swarm of locusts had invaded the country. The grass for 
miles around was cropped close by the horses of General 
Kearney's soldiery. When we came to the fort we found 
that not only had the horses eaten up the grass, but their 
owners had made way with the stores of the little trading 
post; so that we had great difficulty in procuring the few 
articles which we required for our homeward journey. The 
army was gone, the life and bustle passed away, and the 
fort was a scene of dull and lazy tranquillity. A few in- 
valid officers and soldiers sauntered about the area, which 
was oppressively hot ; for the glaring sun was reflected 
down upon it from the high white walls around. The 
proprietors were absent, and we were received by Mr. 
Holt, who had been left in charge of the fort. He in- 
vited us to dinner, where to our admiration, we found a 
table laid with a white cloth, with casters in the middle, 
and chairs placed around it. This unwonted repast con- 
cluded, we rode back to our camp. 

Here, as we lay smoking round the fire after supper, we 
saw through the dusk three men approaching from the direc- 
tion of the fort. They rode up and seated themselves near 



THE PUEBLO AND BENT'S FORT. 335 

us on the ground. The foremost was a tall, well-formed 
man, with a face and manner such as inspire confidence 
at once. He wore a broad hat of felt, slouching and tat- 
tered, and the rest of his attire consisted of a frock and 
leggings of buckskin, rubbed with the yellow clay found 
amono- the mountains. At the heel of one of his mocca- 
sins was buckled a huge iron spur, with a rowel five or 
six inches in diameter. His horse, which stood quietly 
looking over his head, had a rude Mexican saddle, cov- 
ered with a shaggy bear-skin, and furnished with a pair 
of wooden stirrups of preposterous size. The next man 
was a sprightly, active little fellow, about five feet and a 
quarter high, but very strong and compact. His face was 
swarthy as a Mexican's, and covered with a close, curly, 
black beard. An old, greasy, calico handkerchief was tied 
round his head, and his close buckskin dress was black- 
ened and polished by grease and hard service. The last 
who came up was a large, strong man, dressed in the coarse 
homespun of the frontiers, who dragged his long limbs over 
the ground as if he were too lazy for the effort. He had a 
sleepy gray eye, a retreating chin, an open mouth, and a 
protruding upper lip, which gave him an air of exquisite 
indolence and helplessness. He was armed with an old 
United States yager, which redoubtable weapon, though he 
could never hit his mark with it, he was accustomed to 
cherish as the very sovereign of firearms. 

The first two men belonged to a party who had just come 
from California, with a large band of horses, which they had 
sold at Bent's Fort. Munroe, the taller of the two, was 
from Iowa. He was an-excellent fellow, open, warm-hearted, 
and intelligent. Jim Gurney, the short man, was a Boston 
sailor, who had come in a trading vessel to California, and 
taken the fancy to return across the continent. The jour- 



336 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ney had already made him an expert "mountain-man" and 
he presented the extraordinary phenomenon of a sailor who 
understood how to manage a horse. The third of our visi- 
tors, named Ellis, was a Missourian, who had come out with 
a party of Oregon emigrants; but having got as far as 
Bridger's Fort, he had fallen homesick, or as Jim averred, 
lovesick. He thought proper, therefore, to join the Califor- 
nia men, and return homeward in their company. 

They now requested that they might unite with our party, 
and make the journey to the settlements in company with 
us. We readily assented, for we liked the appearance of 
the first two men, and were very glad to gain so efficient 
a reinforcement. We told them to meet us on the next 
evening at a spot on the riverside, about six miles below 
the fort. After we had smoked a pipe together, our new 
allies left us, and we lay down to sleep. 





CHAPTER XXII. 

t£te rouge, the volunteer. 

THE next morning, having directed Deslauriers to repair 
with his cart to the place of meeting, we came again 
to the fort to make some arrangements for the journey. 
After completing these we sat down under a sort of porch, 
to smoke with some Cheyenne Indians whom we found 
there. In a few minutes we saw an extraordinary little 
figure approach us in a military dress. He had a small, 
round countenance, garnished about the eyes with the 
kind of wrinkles commonly known as crow's feet, and sur- 
mounted by an abundant crop of red curls, with a little 
cap resting on the top of them. Altogether, he had the 
look of a man more conversant with mint-juleps and oyster 
suppers than with the hardships of prairie service. He came 
up to us and entreated that we would take him home to the 
settlements, saying that unless he went with us he should 
have to stay all winter at the fort. We liked our peti- 

22 



338 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

tioner's appearance so little that we excused ourselves 
from complying with his request. At this he begged us 
so hard to take pity on him, looked so disconsolate, and 
told so lamentable a story, that at last we consented, 
though not without many misgivings. 

The rugged Anglo-Saxon of our new recruit's real name 
proved utterly unmanageable on the lips of our French 
attendants; and Henry Chatillon, after various abortive 
attempts to pronounce it, one day coolly christened him 
Tete Rouge, in honor of his red curls. He had at differ- 
ent times been clerk of a Mississippi steamboat, and 
agent in a trading establishment at Nauvoo, besides fill- 
ing various other capacities, in all of which he had seen 
much more of "life" than was good for him. In the 
spring, thinking that a summer's campaign would be an 
agreeable recreation, he had joined a company of St. Louis 
volunteers. 

"There were three of us," said Tete Rouge, "me and Bill 
Stevens and John Hopkins. We thought we would just go 
but with the army, and when we had conquered the coun- 
try, we would get discharged and take our pay, you know, 
and go down to Mexico. They say there's plenty of fun 
going on there. Then we could go back to New Orleans 
by way of Vera Cruz." 

But Tete Rouge, like many a stouter volunteer, had 
reckoned without his host. Fighting Mexicans was a less 
amusing occupation than he had supposed, and his pleasure 
trip was disagreeably interrupted by brain fever, which at- 
tacked him when about half-way to Bent's Fort. He jolted 
along through the rest of the journey in a baggage wagon. 
When they came to the fort he was taken out and left there, 
with the rest of the sick. Bent's Fort does not supply the 
best accommodations for an invalid. Tete Route's sick- 



TETE ROUGE, THE VOLUNTEER. 339 

chamber was a little mud room, where he and a compan- 
ion, attacked by the same disease, were laid together, with 
nothing but a buffalo-robe between them and the ground. 
The assistant-surgeon's deputy visited them once a day and 
brought them each a huge dose of calomel, the only medi- 
cine, according to his surviving victim, with which he was 
acquainted. 

Tete Rouge woke one morning, and turning to his com- 
panion saw his eyes fixed upon the beams above with the 
glassy stare of a dead man. At this the unfortunate vol- 
unteer lost his senses outright. In spite of the doctor, 
however, he eventually recovered ; though between the brain 
fever and the calomel, his mind, originally none of the 
strongest, was so much shaken that it had not quite recov- 
ered its balance when we came to the fort. In spite of the 
poor fellow's tragic story, there was something so ludicrous 
in his appearance, and the whimsical contrast between his 
military dress and his most unmilitary demeanor, that we 
could not help smiling at them. We asked him if he had a 
gun. He said they had taken it from him during his illness, 
and he had not seen it since; but "perhaps," he observed, 
looking at me with a beseeching air, "you will lend me one 
of your big pistols if we should meet with any Indians." 
I next inquired if he had a horse; he declared he had a mag- 
nificent one, and at Shaw's request, a Mexican led him in for 
inspection. He exhibited the outline of a good horse, but 
his eyes were sunk in the sockets, and every one of his 
ribs could be counted. There were certain marks too about 
his shoulders, which could be accounted for by the circum- 
stance that, during Tete Rouge's illness, his companions 
had seized upon the insulted charger, and harnessed him 
to a cannon along with the draft horses. To Tete Rouge's 
astonishment we recommended him by all means to ex- 



340 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 




change the horse, if he could, for a mule. Fortunately 
the people at the fort were so anxious to get rid of him 
that they were willing to make some sacrifice to effect 
the object, and he succeeded in getting a tolerable mule 
in exchange for the broken-down steed. 

A man soon appeared at the gate, leading in the mule by 
a cord, which he placed in the hands of Tete Rouge, who, 
being somewhat afraid of his new acquisition, tried various 
flatteries and blandishments to induce her to come forward. 
The mule, knowing that she was expected to advance, 
stopped short in consequence, and stood fast as a rock, 
looking straight forward with immovable composure. Being 
stimulated by a blow from behind, she consented to move, 
and walked nearly to the other side of the fort before she 
stopped again. Hearing the bystanders laugh, Tete Rouge 



t£te rouge, the volunteer. 341 

plucked up spirit and tugged hard at the rope. The mule 
jerked backward, spun herself round, and made a dash for 
the gate. Tete Rouge, who clung manfully to the rope, 
went whisking through the air for a few rods, when he let 
go and stood with his mouth open, staring after the mule, 
which galloped away over the prairie. She was soon caught 
and brought back by a Mexican, who mounted a horse and 
went in pursuit of her with his lasso. 

Having thus displayed his capacities for prairie travel- 
ling, Tete Rouge proceeded to supply himself with provi- 
sions for the journey, and with this view applied to a 
quartermaster's assistant, who was in the fort. This offi- 
cial had a face as sour as vinegar, being in a state of chronic 
indignation because he had been left behind the army. He 
was as anxious as the rest to get rid of Tete Rouge. So, 
producing a rusty key, he opened a low door which led to 
a half-subterranean apartment, into which the two disap- 
peared together. After some time they came out again, 
Tete Rouge greatly embarrassed by a multiplicity of paper 
parcels containing the different articles of his forty days' 
rations. They were consigned to the care of Deslauriers, 
who about that time passed by with the cart, on his way 
to the appointed place of meeting with Munroe and his 
companions. 

We next urged Tete Rouge to provide himself, if he 
could, with a gun. He accordingly made earnest appeals 
to the charity of various persons in the fort, but totally 
without success, — a circumstance which did not greatly 
disturb us, since, in the event of a skirmish. He would be 
more apt to do mischief to himself or his^ friends than to 
the enemy. When all these arrangements were completed 
we saddled our horses, and were preparing to leave the fort, 
when, looking round, we discovered that our new associate 



342 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

was in fresh trouble. A man was holding the mule for him 
in the middle of the fort, while he tried to put the saddle 
on her back, but she kept stepping sideways and moving 
round and round in a circle until he was almost in despair. 
It required some assistance before all his difficulties could 
be overcome. At length he clambered into the black war- 
saddle on which he was to have carried terror into the ranks 
of the Mexicans. 

"Get up," said Tete Rouge; "come now, go along, will 
you.-*" 

The mule walked deliberately forward out of the gate. 
Her recent conduct had inspired him with so much awe 
that he never dared to touch her with his whip. We 
trotted forward toward the place of meeting, but before 
we had gone far, we saw that Tete Rouge's mule, who 
perfectly understood her rider, had stopped and was quietly 
grazing, in spite of his protestations, at some distance be- 
hind. So getting behind him, we drove him and the con- 
tumacious mule before us, until we could see through the 
twilight the gleaming of a distant fire. Munroe, Jim, and 
Ellis were lying around it; their saddles, packs, and 
weapons were scattered about, and their horses picketed 
near them. Deslauriers was there too with our little cart. 
Another fire was soon blazing. We invited our new allies 
to take a cup of coffee with us. When both the others 
had gone over to their side of the camp, Jim Gurney still 
stood by the blaze, puffing hard at his little black pipe, as 
short and weather-beaten as himself. 

"Well," he said, "here are eight of us; we'll call it six 
— for them two boobies, Ellis over yonder and that new 
man of yours, won't count for anything. We '11 get through 
well enough, never fear for that, unless the Camanches 
happen to get foul of us." 







_f(((6tR't f\l 



A*^ 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



W 



INDIAN ALARMS. 

E began our journey for the settlements on the 
twenty-seventh of August, and a more ragamuffin 
cavalcade never was seen on the banks of the Upper Arkan- 
sas. Of the large and fine horses with which we had left 
the frontier in the spring, not one remained : we had sup- 
plied their place with the rough breed of the prairie, as 
hardy as mules and almost as ugly; we had also with us 
a number of the latter detestable animals. In spite of 
their strength and hardihood, several of the band were 
already worn down by hard service and hard fare, and as 
none of them were shod, they were fast becoming foot- 
sore. Every horse and mule had a cord of twisted bull- 
hide coiled about his neck, which by no means added to 



344 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

the beauty of his appearance. Our saddles and all our 
equipments were worn and battered, and our weapons had 
become dull and rusty. The dress of the riders corre- 
sponded with the dilapidated furniture of our horses, and 
of the whole party none made a more disreputable ap- 
pearance than my friend and I. Shaw had for an upper 
garment an old red flannel shirt, flying open in front, and 
belted round him like a frock; while I, in absence of 
other clothing, was attired in a time-worn suit of buck- 
skin. 

Thus, happy and careless as so many beggars, we crept 
slowly from day to day along the monotonous banks of 
the Arkansas. Tete Rouge gave constant trouble, for 
he could never catch his mule, saddle her, or indeed do 
anything else without assistance. Every day he had some 
new ailment, real or imaginary, to complain of. At one 
moment he would be woe-begone and disconsolate, and at 
the next he would be visited with a violent flow of spirits, 
to which he could only give vent by incessant laughing, 
whistling, and telling stories. When other resources failed, 
we used to amuse ourselves by tormenting him ; a fair com- 
pensation for the trouble he cost us. Tete Rouge rather 
enjoyed being laughed at, for he was an odd compound of 
weakness, eccentricity, and good-nature. He made a fig- 
ure worthy of a painter as he paced along before us, 
perched on the back of his mule, and enveloped in a huge 
buffalo-robe coat, which some charitable person had given 
him at the fort. This extraordinary garment, which would 
have contained two men of his size, he chose, for some 
reason best known to himself, to wear inside out, and he 
never took it off even in the hottest weather. It was flut- 
tering all over with seams and tatters, and the hide was so 
old and rotten that it broke out every day in a new place. 



INDIAN ALARMS. 



345 



Just at the top of it a large pile of red curls was visible, 
with his little cap set jauntily upon one side, to give him 
a military air. His seat in the saddle was no less remark- 




^'^^s'^ /r;^^^ ,.^2^ 



able than his person and equipment. He pressed one leg 
close against his mule's side, and thrust the other out at 
an angle of forty-five degrees. His trousers were deco- 
rated with a military red stripe, of which he was ex- 
tremely vain; but being much too short, the whole length 



346 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

of his boots was usually visible below them. His blanket, 
loosely rolled up into a large bundle, dangled at the back 
of his saddle, where he carried it tied with a string. Four 
or five times a day it would fall to the ground. Every few 
minutes he would drop his pipe, his knife, his flint and 
steel, or a piece of tobacco, and scramble down to pick 
them up. In doing this he would contrive to get in every- 
body's way; and as most of the party were by no means 
remarkable for a fastidious choice of lano:uao:e, a storm of 
anathemas would be showered upon him, half in earnest and 
half in jest, until Tete Rouge would declare that there was no 
comfort in life, and that he never saw such fellows before. 

Only a day or two after leaving Bent's Fort Henry 
Chatillon rode forward to hunt, and took Ellis along with 
him. After they had been some time absent we saw them 
coming down the hill driving three dragoon horses, which 
had escaped from their owners on the march, or perhaps 
had given out and been abandoned. One of them was in 
tolerable condition, but the others were much emaciated 
and severely bitten by the wolves. Reduced as they were, 
we carried two of them to the settlements, and Henry ex- 
changed the third with the Arapahoes for an excellent 
mule. 

On the day after, when we had stopped to rest at noon, 
a long train of Santa Fe wagons came up and trailed slowly 
past us in their picturesque procession. They belonged to 
a trader named Magoffin, whose brother, with a number of 
other men, came and sat down with us on the grass. The 
news they brought was not of the most pleasing complex- 
ion. According to their accounts, the trail below was in 
a very dangerous state. They had repeatedly detected In- 
dians prowling at night around their camps; and the large 
party which had left Bent's Fort a few weeks before us had 



INDIAN ALARMS. 347 



been attacked, and a man named Swan, from Massachu- 
setts, had been killed. His companions had buried the 
body; but when Magoffin found his grave, which was near 
a place called "The Caches," the Indians had dug up and 
scalped him, and the wolves had shockingly mangled his 
remains. As an offset to this intelligence, they gave us 
the welcome information that the buffalo were numerous 
at a few days' journey below. 

On the next afternoon, as we moved along the bank of the 
river, we saw the white tops of wagons on the horizon. It 
was some hours before we met them, when they proved to 
be a train of clumsy ox-wagons, quite different from the 
rakish vehicles of the Santa Fe traders, and loaded with 
government stores for the troops. They all stopped, and 
the drivers gathered around us in a crowd. Many of them 
were mere boys, fresh from the plough. In respect to the 
state of the trail, they confirmed all that the Santa Fe 
men had told us. In passing between the Pawnee Fork 
and the Caches, their sentinels had fired every night at 
real or imaginary Indians. They said also that Ewing, a 
young Kentuckian in the party that had gone down before 
us, had shot an Indian who was prowling at evening about 
the camp. Some of them advised us to turn back, and 
others to hasten forward as fast as we could ; but they all 
seemed in such a state of feverish anxiety, and so little 
capable of cool judgment, that we attached slight weight 
to what they said. They next gave us a more definite 
piece of intelligence: a large village of Arapahoes was 
encamped on the river below. They represented them to 
be friendly; but some distinction was to be made between 
a party of thirty men, travelling with oxen, which are of 
no value in an Indian's eyes, and a mere handful like 
ourselves, with a tempting band of mules and horses. 



348 THE OREGON TRAIL. 



Early in the afternoon of the next day, looking along the 
horizon before us, we saw that at one point it was faintly 
marked with pale indentations like the teeth of a saw. 
The distant lodges of the Arapahoes, rising between us 
and the sky, caused this singular appearance. It wanted 
still two or three hours of sunset when we came opposite 
their camp. There were full two hundred lodges stand- 
ing in the midst of a grassy meadow at some distance be- 
yond the river, while for a mile around on both banks of 
the Arkansas were scattered some fifteen hundred horses 
and mules, grazing together in bands, or wandering singly 
about the prairie. The whole were visible at once, for 
the vast expanse was unbroken by hills, and there was not 
a tree or a bush to intercept the view. 

Here and there walked an Indian, engaged in watching 
the horses. No sooner did we see them than Tete Rouge 
begged Deslauriers to stop the cart and hand him his mili- 
tary jacket, which was stowed away there. In this he in- 
vested himself, having for once laid the old buffalo-coat 
aside, assumed a martial posture in the saddle, set his cap 
over his left eye with an air of defiance, and earnestly 
entreated that somebody would lend him a gun or a jMstol 
only for half an hour. Being called upon to explain these 
proceedings, Tete Rouge observed that he knew from ex- 
perience what effect the presence of a military man in his 
uniform always has upon the mind of an Indian, and he 
thought the Arapahoes ought to know that there was a 
soldier in the party. 

Meeting Arapahoes here on the Arkansas was a very 
different thing from meeting the same Indians among 
their native mountains. There was another circumstance 
in our favor. General Kearney had seen them a few weeks 
before as he came up the river with his army, and, renew- 



INDIAN ALARMS. 349 



ing his threats of the previous year he told them that if 
they ever again touched the hair of a white man's head he 
would exterminate their nation. This placed them for the 
time in an admirable frame of mind, and the effect of his 
menaces had not yet disappeared. I wished to see the 
village and its inhabitants. We thought it also our best 
policy to visit them openly, as if unsuspicious of any hos- 
tile design; and Shaw and I, with Henry Chatillon, pre- 
pared to cross the river. The rest of the party meanwhile 
moved forward as fast as they could, in order to get as 
far as possible from our suspicious neighbors before night 
came on. 

The Arkansas at this point, and for several hundred miles 
below, is in August nothing but a broad sand-bed over which 
glide a few scanty threads of water, now and then expand- 
ing into wide shallows. At several places, during the 
autumn the water sinks into the sand and disappears 
altogether. At this season, were it not for the numerous 
quicksands, the river might be forded almost anywhere 
without difficulty, though its channel is often a quarter 
of a mile wide. Our horses jumped down the bank, and 
wading through the water, or galloping freely over the 
hard sand-beds, soon reached the other side. Here, as 
we were pushing through the tall grass, we saw several 
Indians not far off; one of them waited until we came 
up, and stood for some moments in perfect silence before 
us, looking at us askance with his little snake-like eyes. 
Henry explained by signs what we wanted, and the In- 
dian, gathering his buffalo-robe about his shoulders, led 
the way towards the village without speaking a word. 

The language of the Arapahoes is so difficult, and its 
pronunciation so harsh and guttural, that no white man, 
it is said, has ever been able to master it. Even Max- 



350 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

well, the trader who has been most among them, is com- 
pelled to resort to the curious sign-language common to 
most of the prairie tribes. With this sign-language Henry 
Chatillon was perfectly acquainted. 

Approaching the village, we found the ground strewn 
with piles of waste buffalo-meat in incredible quantities. 
The lodges were pitched in a circle. They resembled 
those of the Dakota in everything but cleanliness. Pass- 
ing between two of them, we entered the great circular 
area of the camp, and instantly hundreds of Indians, men, 
women, and children, came flocking out of their habita- 
tions to look at us; at the same time the dogs all around 
the village set up a discordant baying. Our Indian guide 
walked towards the lodge of the chief. Here we dis- 
mounted; and loosening the trail-ropes from our horses' 
necks, held them fast as we sat down before the entrance, 
with our rifles laid across our laps. The chief came out 
and shook us by the hand. He was a mean-looking fellow, 
very tall, thin-visaged, and sinewy, like the rest of the 
nation, and with scarcely a vestige of clothing. We had 
not been seated a moment before a multitude of Indians 
came crowding around us from every part of the village, 
and we were shut in by a dense wall of savage faces. 
Some of our visitors crouched about us on the ground; 
others sat behind them; others, stooping, looked over their 
heads; while many more stood behind, peering over one an- 
other's shoulders, to get a view of us. I looked in vain 
among this throng of faces to discover one manly or gen- 
erous expression; all were wolfish, sinister, and malignant, 
and their complexions, as well as their features, unlike 
those of the Dakota, were exceedingly bad. The chief, 
who sat close to the entrance, called to a squaw within 
the lodge, who soon came out and placed a wooden bowl 



INDIAN ALARMS. 351 



of meat before us. To our surprise, however, no pipe was 
offered. Having tasted of the meat as a matter of form, 
I began to open a bundle of presents, — -tobacco, knives, 
vermilion, and other articles which I had brought with 
me. At this there was a grin on every countenance in 
the rapacious crowd; their eyes began to glitter, and long 
thin arms were eagerly stretched towards us on all sides 
to receive the gifts. 

The Arapahoes set great value upon their shields, which 
they transmit carefully from father to son. I wished to get 
one of them; and displaying a large piece of scarlet cloth, 
together with some tobacco, and a knife, I offered them to any 
one who would bring me what I wanted. After some delay 
a tolerable shield was produced. They were very anxious 
to know what we meant to do with it, and Henry told them 
that we were going to fight their enemies the Pawnees. 
This instantly produced a visible impression in our favor, 
which was increased by the distribution of the presents. 
Among these was a large paper of awls, a gift appropriate to 
the women; and as we were anxious to see the beauties of 
the Arapahoe village, Henry requested that they might be 
called to receive them. A warrior gave a shout, as if he 
were calling a pack of dogs together. The squaws, young 
and old, hags of eighty and girls of sixteen, came running 
with screams and laughter out of the lodges; and as the 
men gave way for them, they gathered round us and 
stretched out their arms, grinning with delight, their 
native ugliness considerably enhanced by the excitement 
of the moment. 

Mounting our horses, which during the whole interview 
we had held close to us, we prepared to leave the Arap- 
ahoes. The crowd fell back on each side, and stood look- 
ing on. When we were half across the camp an idea 



352 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

occurred to us. The Pawnees were probably in the neigh- 
borhood of the Caches; we might tell the Arapahoes of 
this, and instigate them to send down a war-party and cut 
them off, while we ourselves could remain behind for a 
while and hunt the buffalo. At first thought, this plan 
of setting our enemies to destroy one another seemed to 
us a masterpiece of policy; but we immediately recol- 
lected that should we meet the Arapahoe warriors on 
the river below, they might prove quite as dangerous as 
the Pawnees themselves. So rejecting our plan as soon 
as it presented itself, we passed out of the village on the 
farther side. We urged our horses rapidly through the 
tall grass, which rose to their necks. Several Indians 
were walking through it at a distance, their heads just 
visible above its waving surface. It bore a kind of seed, 
as sweet and nutritious as oats ; and our hungry horses, 
in spite of whip and rein, could not resist the temptation 
of snatching at this unwonted luxury as we passed along. 
When about a mile from the village, I turned and looked 
back over the undulating ocean of grass. The sun was 
just set ; the western sky was all in a glow, and sharply de- 
fined against it, on the extreme verge of the j^lain, stood 
the clustered lodges of the Arapahoe camp. 

Reaching the bank of the river, we followed it for some 
distance farther, until we discerned through the twilight 
the white covering of our little cart on the opposite bank. 
When we reached it we found a considerable number of 
Indians there before us. Four or five of them were seated 
in a row upon the ground, looking like so many half-starved 
vultures. Tete Rouge, in his uniform, was holding a close 
colloquy with another by the side of the cart. Poinding his 
signs and gesticulation of no avail, he tried to make the 
Indian understand him by repeating English words very 



INDIAN ALARMS. 353 



loudly and distinctly again and again. The Indian sat with 
his eye fixed steadily upon him, and in spite of the rigid 
immobility of his features, it was clear at a glance that he 
perfectly understood and despised his military companion. 
The exhibition was more amusing than politic, and Tete 
Rouge was directed to finish what he had to say as soon 
as possible. Thus rebuked, he crept under the cart and 
sat down there; Henry Chatillon stooped to look at him 
in his retirement, and remarked in his quiet manner that 
an Indian would kill ten such men and laugh all the time. 

One by one our visitors arose and stalked away. As 
the darkness thickened we were saluted by dismal sounds. 
The wolves are incredibly numerous in this part of the 
country, and the offal around the Arapahoe camp had 
drawn such multitudes of them together that several hun- 
dreds were howling in concert in our immediate neighbor- 
hood. There was an island in the river, or rather an oasis 
in the midst of the sands, at about the distance of a gun- 
shot, and here they seemed to be gathered in the greatest 
numbers. A horrible discord of low, mournful wailings, 
mingled with ferocious howls, arose from it incessantly 
for several hours after sunset. We could distinctly see 
the wolves running about the prairie within a few rods of 
our fire, or bounding over the sand-beds of the river and 
splashing through the water. There was not the slightest 
danger from them, for they are the greatest cowards on 
the prairie. 

In respect to the human wolves in our neighborhood, we 
felt much less at our ease. That night each man spread 
his buffalo-robe upon the ground with his loaded rifle laid 
at his side or clasped in his arms. Our horses were pick- 
eted so close around us that one of them repeatedly stepped 
over me as I lay. We were not in the habit of placing a 

23 



354 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

guard, but every man was anxious and watchful : there 
was little sound sleeping in camp, and some one of the 
party was on his feet during the greater part of the night. 
For myself, I lay alternately waking and dozing until mid- 
night. Tete Rouge was reposing close to the river bank, 
and about this time, when half asleep and half awake, I 
was conscious that he shifted his position and crept on 
all-fours under the cart. Soon after I fell into a sound 
sleep, from which I was roused by a hand shaking me by 
the shoulder. Looking up, I saw Tete Rouge stooping 
over me with a pale face and dilated eyes. 

"What 's the matter.' " said I. 

Tete Rouge declared that as he lay on the river bank 
something caught his eye which excited his suspicions. 
So creeping under the cart for safety's sake, he sat there 
and watched, when he saw two Indians, wrapped in white 
robes, creep up the bank, seize upon two horses, and 
lead them off. He looked so frightened and told his story 
in such a disconnected manner that I did not believe him, 
and was unwilling to alarm the party. Still it might be 
true, and in that case the matter required instant atten- 
tion. So directing Tete Rouge to show me which way 
the Indians had gone, I took my rifle, in obedience to a 
thoughtless impulse, and left the camp. I followed the 
river bank for two or three hundred yards, listening and 
looking anxiously on every side. In the dark prairie on 
the right I could discern nothing to excite alarm; and in 
the dusky bed of the river, a wolf was bounding along in a 
manner which no Indian could imitate. I returned to the 
camp, and when within sight of it, saw that the whole 
party was aroused. Shaw called out to me that he had 
counted the horses, and that every one of them was in 
his place. Tete Rouge, being examined as to what he had 



INDIAN ALARMS. 



355 



seen, only repeated his former story with many assevera- 
tions, and insisted that two horses were certainly carried 
off. At this Jim Gurney declared that he was crazy; 
Tete Rouge indignantly denied thfe charge, on which Jim 
appealed to us. As we declined to give our judgment on 
so delicate a matter, the dispute grew hot between Tete 
Rouge and his accuser, until he was directed to go to bed, 
and not alarm the camp again if he saw the whole Ara- 
pahoe village coming. 




CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE CHASE. 



THE country before us was now thronged with buffalo, 
and a sketch of the manner of hunting them will not 
be out of place. There are two methods commonly prac- 
tised, — "running" and "approaching." The chase on 
horseback, which goes by the name of "running," is 
the more violent and dashing mode of the two, that is 
to say, when the buffalo are in one of their wild moods; 
for otherwise it is tame enough. A practised and skil- 
ful hunter, well mounted, will sometimes kill five or 
six cows in a single chase, loading his gun again and 
again as his horse rushes through the tumult. In at- 
tacking a small band of buffalo, or in separating a sin- 
gle animal from the herd and assailing it apart from the 
rest, there is less excitement and less danger. In fact, 
the animals are at times so stupid and lethargic that there 
is little sport in killing them. With a bold and well- 
trained horse the hunter may ride so close to the buffalo 
that as they gallop side by side he may touch him with 
his hand; nor is there much danger in this as long as the 
buffalo's strength and breath continue unabated; but when 
he becomes tired and can no longer run with ease, when 
his tongue lolls out and the foam flies from his jaws, 
then the hunter had better keep a more respectful dis- 
tance; the distressed brute may turn upon him at any in- 
stant, and especially at the moment when he fires his 



THE CHASE. 357 



gun. The horse then leaps aside, and the hunter has 
need of a tenacious seat in the saddle, for if he is thrown 
to the ground there is no hope for him. When he sees 
his attack defeated the buffalo resumes his flight, but if 
the shot is well directed he soon stops; for a few mo- 
ments he stands still, then totters and falls heavily upon 
the prairie. 

The chief difficulty in running buffalo, as it seems to 
me, is that of loading the gun or pistol at full gallop. 
Many hunters, for convenience' sake, carry three or four 
bullets in the mouth; the powder is poured down the 
muzzle of the piece, the bullet dropped in after it, or 
spit from the mouth into the barrel, the stock struck hard 
upon the pommel of the saddle, and the work is done. 
The danger of this is obvious. Should the blow on the 
pommel fail to send the bullet home, or should the bullet, 
in the act of aiming, start from its place and roll towards 
the muzzle, the gun would probably burst in discharging. 
]\Ianv a shattered hand and worse casualties besides have 
been the result of such an accident. To obviate it, some 
hunters make use of a ramrod, usually hung by a string 
from the neck, but this materially increases the difficulty 
of loading. The bows and arrows which the Indians use 
in running buffalo have many advantages over firearms, 
and even white men occasionally employ them. 

The danger of the chase arises not so much from the 
onset of the wounded animal as from the nature of the 
ground which the hunter must ride over. The prairie 
does not always present a smooth, level, and uniform sur- 
face; very often it is broken witli hills and hollows, inter- 
sected by ravines, and in the remoter parts studded by 
the stiff wild-sage bushes. The most formidable obstruc- 
tions, however, are the burrows of wild animals, — wolves. 



358 



THE OREGON TRAIL. 



badgers, and particularly prairie-dogs, with whose holes the 
ground for a great extent is frequently honey-combed. 
In the blindness of the chase the hunter rushes over it 




"jM^c^^enm^A 



unconscious of danger; his horse, at full career, thrusts 
his leg deep into one of the burrows ; the bone snaps, the 
rider is hurled forward to the ground and probably killed. 
Yet accidents in buffalo running happen less frequently 
than one would suppose; in the recklessness of the chase, 



THE CHASE. 359 



the hunter enjoys all the impunity of a drunken man, and 
may ride in safety over gullies and declivities, where, 
should he attempt to pass in his sober senses he would 
infallibly break his neck. 

The method of "approaching," being practised on foot, 
has many advantages over that of "running;" in the for- 
mer one neither breaks down his horse nor endangers his 
own life; he must be cool, collected, and watchful; must 
understand the buffalo, observe the features of the coun- 
try and the course of the wind, and be well skilled in 
using the rifle. The buffalo are strange animals; some- 
times they are so stupid and infatuated that a man may 
walk up to them in full sight on the open prairie, and 
even shoot several of their number before the rest will 
think it necessary to retreat. At another moment they 
will be so shy and wary that in order to approach them the 
utmost skill, experience, and judgment are necessary. Kit 
Carson, I believe, stands pre-eminent in running buffalo; 
in approaching, no man living can bear away the palm 
from Henry Chat i lion. 

After Tete Rouge had alarmed the camp, no farther 
disturbance occurred during the night. The Arapahoes 
did not attempt mischief, or if they did the wakefulness 
of the party deterred them from effecting their purpose. 
The next day was one of activity and excitement, for 
about ten o'clock the man in advance shouted the glad- 
dening cry of "Buffalo! buffalo!" and in the hollow of the 
prairie just below us, a band of bulls were grazing. The 
temptation was irresistible, and Shaw and I rode down 
upon them. We were badly mounted on our travelling 
horses, but by hard lashing we overtook them, and Shaw, 
running alongside a bull, shot into him both balls of his 
double-barrelled gun. Looking round as I galloped by, I 



36o THE OREGON TRAIL. 

saw the bull in his mortal fury rushing again and again 
upon his antagonist, whose horse constantly leaped aside, 
and avoided the onset. My chase was more protracted, 
but at length I ran close to the bull and killed him with 
my pistols. Cutting off the tails of our victims by way of 
trophy, we rejoined the party in about a quarter of an hour 
after we had left it. Again and again that morning rang 
out the same welcome cry of "Buffalo! buffalo!" Every 
few moments, in the broad meadows along the river, we 
saw bands of bulls, who raising their shaggy heads would 
gaze in stupid amazement at the approaching horsemen, 
and then breaking into a clumsy gallop, file off in a long 
line across the trail in front, towards the rising prairie 
on the left. At noon, the plain before us was alive with 
thousands of buffalo, bulls, cows, and calves, all moving 
rapidly as we drew near; and far off beyond the river the 
swelling prairie was darkened with them to the very hori- 
zon. The party was in gayer spirits than ever. We stopped 
for a nooning near a grove of trees by the river. 

"Tongues and hump-ribs to-morrow," said Shaw, look- 
ing with contempt at the venison steaks which Deslauriers 
placed before us. Our meal finished, we lay down to 
sleep. A shout from Henry Chatillon aroused us, and we 
saw him standing on the cart-wheel, stretching his tall 
figure to its full height while he looked towards the 
prairie beyond the river. Following the direction of his 
eyes, we could clearly distinguish a large dark object, 
like the black shadow of a cloud, passing rapidly over 
swell after swell of the distant plain; behind it followed 
another of similar appearance though smaller, moving more 
rapidly, and drawing closer and closer to the first. It was 
the hunters of the Arapahoe camp chasing a band of buf- 
falo. Shaw and I caught and saddled our best horses, and 



THE CHASE. 361 



went plunging through sand and water to the farther bank. 
We were too late. The hunters had already mingled with 
the herd, and the work of slaughter was nearly over. When 
we reached the ground we found it strewn far and near 
with numberless carcasses, while the remnants of the herd, 
scattered in all directions, were flying away in terror, 
and the Indians still rushing in pursuit. Many of the 
hunters, however, remained upon the spot, and among the 
rest was our yesterday's acquaintance, the chief of the vil- 
lage. He had alighted by the side of a cow, into which he 
had shot five or six arrows, and his squaw, who had fol- 
lowed him on horseback to the hunt, was giving him a 
draught of water from a canteen purchased or plundered 
from some volunteer soldier. Recrossing the river, we 
overtook the party, who were already on their way. . 

We had gone scarcely a mile when we saw an imposing 
spectacle. From the river bank on the right, away over 
the sv/elling prairie on the left, and in front as far as the 
eye could reach, was one vast host of buffalo. The out- 
skirts of the herd were within a quarter of a mile. In 
many parts they were crowded so densely together that in 
the distance their rounded backs presented a surface of 
uniform blackness ; but elsewhere they were more scat- 
tered, and from amid the multitude rose little columns of 
dust where some of them were rolling on the ground. 
Here and there a battle was going forward among the 
bulls. We could distinctly see them rushing against each 
other, and hear the clattering of their horns and their 
hoarse bellowing. Shaw was riding at some distance in 
advance, with Henry Chatillon; I saw him stop and draw 
the leather covering from his gun. With such a sight 
before us, but one thing could be thought of. That morn- 
ing I had used pistols in the chase. I had now a 



362 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

mind to try the virtue of a gun. Deslauriers had one, 
and I rode up to the side of the cart ; there he sat under 
the white covering, biting his pipe between his teeth and 
grinning with excitement. 

" Lend me your gun, Deslauriers." 

" Oui, Monsieur, oui, " said Deslauriers, tugging with 
might and main to stop the mule, which seemed obsti- 
nately bent on going forward. Then everything but his 
moccasins disappeared as he crawled into the cart and 
pulled at the gun to extricate it. 

" Is it loaded.^ " I asked. 

"Oui, bien charge; you'll kill, mon bourgeois; yes, 
you'll kill — c'est un bon fusil." 

I handed him my rifle and rode forward to Shaw. 

" Are you ready ?" he asked. 

" Come on," said I. 

"Keep down that hollow," said Henry, "and then they 
won't see you till you get close to them." 

The hollow was a kind of wide ravine; it ran obliquely 
towards the buffalo, and we rode at a canter along the 
bottom until it became too shallow; then we bent close 
to our horses' necks, and, at last, finding that it could no 
longer conceal us, came out of it and rode directly towards 
the herd. It was within gunshot ; before its outskirts nu- 
merous grizzly old bulls were scattered, holding guard over 
their females. They glared at us in anger and astonish- 
ment, walked towards us a few yards, and then turning 
slowly round retreated at a trot which afterwards broke 
into a clumsy gallop. In an instant the main body caught 
the alarm. The buffalo began to crowd away from the 
point towards which we were approaching, and a gap was 
opened in the side of the herd. We entered it, still re- 
straining our excited horses. Every instant the tumult 



THE CHASE. 363 



was thickening. The buffalo, pressing together in large 
bodies, crowded away from us on every hand. In front 
and on either side we could see dark columns and masses, 
half hidden by clouds of dust, rushing along in terror and 
confusion, and hear the tramp and clattering of ten thou- 
sand hoofs. That countless multitude of powerful brutes, 
ignorant of their own strength, were flying in a panic 
from the approach of two feeble horsemen. To remain 
quiet longer was impossible. 

"Take that band on the left," said Shaw; "I'll take 
these in front." 

He sprang off, and I saw no more of him. A heavy Indian 
whip, or "quirt," was fastened by a band to my wrist; I 
swung it into the air and lashed my horse's flank with all 
the strength of my arm. Away she darted, stretching close 
to the ground, I could see nothing but a cloud of dust 
before me, but I knew that it concealed a band of many 
hundreds of buffalo. In a moment I was in the midst of 
the cloud, half suffocated by the dust and stunned by the 
trampling of the flying herd ; but I was drunk with the 
chase and cared for nothing but the buffalo. Very soon 
a long dark mass became visible, looming through the 
dust ; then I could distinguish each bulky carcass, the 
hoofs flying out beneath, the short tails held rigidly erect. 
In a moment I was so close that I could have touched 
them with my gun. Suddenly, to my amazement, the 
hoofs were jerked upwards, the tails flourished in the air, 
and amid a cloud of dust the buffalo seemed to sink into 
the earth before me. One vivid impression of that in- 
stant remains upon my mind. I remember looking down 
upon the backs of several buffalo dimly visible through 
the dust. We had run unawares upon a ravine. At that 
moment I was not the mcjst accurate judge of depth and 



364 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

width, but when I passed it on my return, I found it 
about twelve feet deep and not quite twice as wide at 
the bottom. It was impossible to stop ; I would have 
done so gladly if I could ; so, half sliding, half plunging, 
down went the little mare. She came down on her knees 
in the loose sand at the bottom ; I was pitched forward 
against her neck and nearly thrown over her head among 
the buffalo, who amid dust and confusion came tumbling 
in all around. The mare was on her feet in an instant 
and scrambling like a cat up the opposite side. I thought 
for a moment that she would have fallen back and crushed 
me, but with a violent effort she clambered out and gained 
the hard prairie above. Glancing back I saw the huge 
head of a bull clinging as it were by the forefeet at the 
edge of the dusty gulf. At length I was fairly among the 
buffalo. They were less densely crowded than before, and 
I could see nothing but bulls, who always run at the rear 
of a herd to protect their females. As I passed among 
them they would lower their heads, and turning as they 
ran, try to gore my horse ; but as they were already at 
full speed there was no force in their onset, and as 
Pauline ran faster than they, they were always thrown 
behind her in the effort. I soon began to distinguish 
cows amid the throng. One just in front of me seemeci 
to my liking, and I pushed close to her side. Dropping 
the reins I fired, holding the muzzle of the gun within a 
foot of her shoulder. Quick as lightning she sprang at 
Pauline; the little mare dodged the attack, and I lost 
sight of the wounded animal amid the tumult. Immedi- 
ately after, I selected another, and urging forward Pauline, 
shot into her both pistols in succession. For a while I 
kept her in view, but in attempting to load my gun lost 
sio-ht of her also in the confusion. Believins: her to be 




-l!i^'-" \ <t\^ 



THE CHASE. 365 



mortally wounded and unable to keep up with the herd, 
I checked my horse. The crowd rushed onwards. The 
dust and tumult passed away, and on the prairie, far be- 
hind the rest, I saw a solitary buffalo galloping heavily. 
In a moment I and my victim were running side by side. 
My firearms were all empty, and I had in my pouch noth- 
ing but rifle bullets, too large for the pistols and too small 
for the gun. I loaded the gun, however, but as often as 
I levelled it to fire, the bullets would roll out of the 
muzzle and the gun returned only a report like a squib as 
the powder harmlessly exploded. I rode in front of the 
buffalo and tried to turn her back ; but her eyes glared, 
her mane bristled, and, lowering her head, she rushed at 
me with the utmost fierceness and activity. Again and 
again I rode before her, and again and again she repeated 
her furious charge. But little Pauline was in her ele- 
ment. She dodged her enemy at every rush, until at 
length the buffalo stood still, exhausted with her own 
efforts, her tongue lolling from her jaws. 

Riding to a little distance, I dismounted, thinking to 
gather a handful of dry grass to serve the purpose of wad- 
ding, and load the gun at my leisure. No sooner were my 
feet on the ground than the buffalo came bounding in such 
a rage towards me that I jumped back again into the 
saddle with all possible despatch. After waiting a few 
minutes more, I made an attempt to ride up and stab her 
with my knife; but Pauline was near being gored in the 
attempt. At length, bethinking me of the fringes at the 
seams of my buckskin trousers, I jerked off a few of 
them and, reloading the gun, forced them down the barrel 
to keep the bullet in its place; then approaching, I shot 
the wounded buffalo through the heart. Sinking to her 
knees, she rolled over lifeless on the prairie. To my 



366 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

astonishment, I found that, instead of a cow. I had been 
slaughtering- a stout young bull. No longer wondering 
at his fierceness, I opened his throat, and cutting out his 
tongue tied it at the back of my saddle. ^ly mistake was 
one which a more experienced eye than mine might easily 
make in the dust and confusion of such a chase. 

Then for the first time I had leisure to look at the scene 
around me. The prairie in front was darkened with the 
retreating multitude, and on either hand the buffalo came 
filing up in endless columns from the low plains upon the 
river. The Arkansas was three or four' miles distant. I 
turned and moved slowly towards it. A long time passed 
before, far in the distance, I distinguished the white cov- 
ering of the cart and the little black specks of horsemen 
before and behind it. Drawing near, I recognized Shaw's 
elegant tunic, the red flannel shirt, conspicuous far off. I 
overtook the party, and asked him what success he had had. 
He had assailed a fat cow, shot her with two bullets, and 
mortallv wounded her. Rut neither of us was prepared 
for the chase that afternoon, and Shaw, like myself, had 
no spare bullets in his pouch; so he abandoned the dis- 
abled animal to Henry Chatillon. who followed, despatched 
her with his rifle, and loaded his horse with the meat. 

We encamped close to the river. The night was dark. 
and as we lay down we could hear, mingled with the bowl- 
ings of wolves, the hoarse bellowing of the buffalo, like 
the ocean beating upon a distant coast. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE BUFFALO CAMP. 

^TOBODY in the camp was more active than Jim Gurney, 
^ and nobody half so lazy as Ellis. Between these two 
there was a great antipathy. Ellis never stirred in the 
morning until he was compelled, but Jim was always on his 
feet before daybreak; and this morning as usual the sound 
af his voice awakened the party. 

"Get up, you booby! up with you now, you're fit for 
nothing but eating and sleeping. Stop your grumbling 
and come out of that buffalo-robe, or I '11 pull it off for 
you." 

Jim's words were interspersed with numerous expletives, 
which gave them great additional effect. Ellis drawled out 
something in a nasal tone from among the folds of his buffalo- 
robe; then slowly disengaged himself, rose into a sitting 
posture, stretched his long arms, yawned hideously, and, 
finally raising his tall person erect, stood staring about 
him to all the four quarters of the horizon. Deslauriers's 
fire was soon blazing, and the horses and mules, loosened 
from their pickets, were feeding on the neighboring 
meadow. When we sat down to breakfast the prairie 
was still in the dusky light of morning; and as the sun 
rose we were mounted and on our way again. 

"A white buffalo! " exclaimed Munroe. 

"I'll have that fellow," said Shaw, "if I run my horse 
to death after him." 



368 thp: Oregon trail. 

He threw the cover of his gun to Deslauriers and galloped 
out upon the prairie. 

"Stop, Mr. Shaw, stop!" called out Henry Chatillon, 
"you'll run down your horse for nothing; it's only a 
white ox." 

But Shaw was already out of hearing. The ox, which 
had no doubt strayed away from some of the government 
wagon trains, was standing beneath some low hills which 
bounded the plain in the distance. Not far from him a 
band of veritable buffalo bulls were grazing; and startled 
at Shaw's approach, they all broke into a run and went 
scrambling up the hillsides to gain the high prairie above. 
One of them in his haste and terror involved himself 
in a fatal catastrophe. Along the foot of the hills was a 
narrow strip of deep marshy soil, into which the bull 
plunged and hopelessly entangled himself. We all rode 
to the spot. The huge carcass was half sunk in the mud, 
which flowed to his very chin, and his shaggy mane was 
outspread upon the surface. As we came near, the bull 
began to struggle with convulsive strength; he writhed 
to and fro,' and in the energy of his fright and despera- 
tion would lift liimself for a moment half out of the 
slough, while the reluctant mire returned a sucking sound 
as he strained to drag his limbs from its tenacious depths. 
We stimulated his exertions by getting behind him and 
twisting his tail ; nothing would do. There was clearly 
no hope for him. After every effort his heaving sides were 
more deeply imbedded and the mire almost overflowed his 
nostrils; he lay still at length, and looking round at us 
with a furious eye, seemed to resign himself to his fate. 
Ellis slowly dismounted, and, levelling his boasted yager, 
shot the old bull through the heart ; then lazily climbed 
back again to his seat, pluming himself no doubt on hav- 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 3^9 



ing actually killed a buffalo. That day the redoubtable 
yager drew blood for the first and last time during the 
whole journey. 

The morning was a bright and gay one, and the air so 
clear that on the farthest horizon the outline of the pale 
blue prairie was sharply drawn against the sky. Shaw 
was in the mood for hunting; he rode in advance of the 
party, and before long we saw a file of bulls galloping at 
full speed upon a green swell of the prairie at some dis- 
tance in front. Shaw came scouring along behind them, 
arrayed in his red shirt, which looked very well in the 
distance; he gained fast on the fugitives, and as the fore- 
most bull was disappearing behind the summit of the 
swell, we saw him in the act of assailing the hindmost ; 
a smoke sprang from the muzzle of his gun and floated 
away before the wind like a little white cloud; the bull 
turned upon him, and just then the rising ground con- 
cealed them both from view. 

We were moving forward until about noon, when we 
stopped by the side of the Arkansas. At that moment 
Shaw appeared riding slowly down the side of a distant 
hill; his horse was tired and jaded, and when he threw 
his saddle upon the ground, I observed that the tails of 
two bulls were dangling behind it. No sooner were the 
horses turned loose to feed than Henry, asking Munroe 
to go with him, took his rifle and walked quietly away. 
Shaw, Tete Rouge, and I sat down by the side of the 
cart to discuss the dinner which Deslauriers placed be- 
fore us, and we had scarcely finished when we saw Munroe 
walking towards us along the river bank. Henry, he said, 
had killed four fat cows and had sent him back for horses 
to bring in the meat. Shaw took a horse for himself and 
another for Henry, and he and Munroe left the camp to- 

24 



370 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

gather. After a short absence all three of them came 
back, their horses loaded with the choicest parts of the 
meat. We kept two of the cows for ourselves, and gave 
the others to Munroe and his companions. Deslauriers 
seated himself on the grass before the pile of meat and 
worked industriously for some time to cut it into thin 
broad sheets for drying, an art in which he had all the 
skill of an Indian squaw. Long before night, cords of 
raw hide were stretched around the camp, and the meat 
was hung upon them to dry in the sunshine and pure 
air of the prairie. Our California companions were less 
successful at the work; but they accomplished it after 
their own fashion, and their side of the camp was soon 
garnished in the same manner as our own. 

We meant to remain at this place long enough to pre- 
pare provisions for our journey to the frontier, which, as 
we supposed, might occupy about a month. Had the 
distance been twice as great and the party ten times as 
large, the rifie of Henry Chatillon would have supplied 
meat enough for the whole within two days; we were 
obliged to remain, however, until it should be dry enough 
for transportation; so we pitched our tent and made other 
arrangements for a permanent camp. The California men 
who had no such shelter, contented themselves with arrang- 
ing their packs on the grass around their fire. In the 
meantime we had nothing to do but amuse ourselves. Our 
tent was within a rod of the river, if the broad sand-beds, 
with a scanty stream of water coursing here and there 
along their surface, deserve to be dignified with the name 
of river. The vast flat plains on either side were almost 
on a level with the sand-beds, and they were bounded in 
the distance by low, monotonous hills, parallel to the 
course of the stream. All was one expanse of grass ; 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 3/1 



there was no wood in view, except some trees and stunted 
bushes upon two islands which rose from the wet sands 
of the river. Yet, far from being dull and tame, the scene 
was often a wild and animated one; for twice a day, at 
sunrise and at noon, the buffalo came issuing from the 
hills, slowly advancing in their grave processions to drink 
at the river. All our amusements were to be at their 
expense. An old buffalo-bull is a brute of unparalleled 
ugliness. At first sight of him every feeling of pity 
vanishes. The cows are much smaller and of a gentler 
appearance, as becomes their sex. While in this camp 
we forbore to attack them, leaving to Henry Chatillon, 
who could better judge their quality, the task of killing 
such as we wanted for use; but against the bulls we 
waged an unrelenting war. Thousands of them might be 
slaughtered without causing any detriment to the species, 
for their numbers greatly exceed those of the cows; it 
is the hides of the latter alone which are used for the 
purposes of commerce and for making the lodges of the 
Indians; and the destruction among them is therefore 
greatly disproportionate. 

Our horses were tired and we now usually hunted on 
foot. While we were lying on the grass after dinner, 
smoking, talking, or laughing at Tete Rouge, one of us 
would look up and observe, far out on the plains beyond 
the river, certain black objects slowly approaching. He 
would inhale a parting whiff from the pipe, then rising 
lazily, take his rifle, which leaned against the cart, throw 
over his shoulder the strap of his pouch and powder-horn, 
and with his moccasins in his hand walk across the sand 
towards the opposite side of the river. This was easy; 
for though the sands were about a quarter of a mile wide, 
the water was nowhere more than two feet deep. The 



Z72 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

farther bank was about four or five feet high and quite 
perpendicular, being cut away by the water in spring. 
Tall grass grew along its edge. Putting it aside with his 
hand, and cautiously looking through it, the hunter can 
discern the huge shaggy back of the bull slowly swaying 
to and fro, as, with his clumsy swinging gait, he advances 
towards the water. The buffalo have regular paths by which 
they come down to drink. Seeing at a glance along which 
of these his intended victim is moving, the hunter crouches 
under the bank within fifteen or twenty 3^ards, it may be, 
of the point where the path enters the river. Here he sits 
down quietly on the sand. Listening intently, he hears 
the heavy monotonous tread of the approaching bull. The 
moment after, he sees a motion among the long weeds and 
grass just at the spot where the path is channelled through 
the bank. An enormous black head is thrust out, the horns 
just visible amid the mass of tangled mane. Half sliding, 
half plunging, down comes the buffalo upon the river-bed 
below. He steps out in full sight upon the sands. Just 
before him a runnel of water is gliding, and he bends his 
head to drink. You may hear the water as it gurgles down 
his capacious throat. He raises his head, and the drops 
trickle from his wet beard. He stands with an air of stupid 
abstraction, unconscious of the lurking danger. Noiselessly 
the hunter cocks his rifle. As he sits upon the sand, his 
knee is raised, and his elbow rests upon it, that he may 
level his heavy weapon with a steadier aim. The stock is 
at his shoulder; his eye ranges along the barrel. Still he 
is in no haste to fire. The bull, with slow deliberation, 
begins his march over the sands to the other side. He 
advances his foreleg, and exposes to view a small spot, 
denuded of hair, just behind the point of his shoulder; 
upon this the hunter brings the sight of his rifle to bear; 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 373 

lightly and delicately his finger presses the hair-trigger. 
The spiteful crack of the rifle responds to his touch, and 
instantly in the middle of the bare spot appears a small 
red dot. The buffalo shivers; death has overtaken him, 
he cannot tell from whence; still he does not fall, but 
walks heavily forward, as if nothing had happened. Yet 
before he has gone far out upon the sand, you see him 
stop; he totters; his knees bend under him, and his head 
sinks forward to the ground. Then his whole vast bulk 
sways to one side; he rolls over on the sand, and dies with 
a scarcely perceptible struggle. 

Waylaying the buffalo in this manner, and shooting them 
as they come to water, is the easiest method of hunting 
them. They may also be approached by crawling up ravines,. 
or behind hills, or even over the open prairie. This is often 
surprisingly easy; but at other times it requires the utmost 
skill of the most experienced hunter. Henry Chatillon was 
a man of extraordinary strength and hardihood; but I have 
seen him return to camp quite exhausted with his efforts, 
his limbs scratched and wounded, and his buckskin dress 
stuck full of the thorns of the prickly-pear, among which 
he had been crawling. Sometimes he would lie flat upon 
his face, and drag himself along in this position for many 
rods together. 

On the second day of our stay at this place, Henry went 
out for an afternoon hunt. Shaw and I remained in camp 
until, observing some bulls approaching the water upon the 
other side of the river, we crossed over to attack them. 
They were so near, however, that before we could get 
under cover of the bank our appearance as we walked over 
the sands alarmed them. Turning round before coming 
within gun-shot, they began to move off to the right in a 
direction parallel to the river. I climbed up the bank 



374 • THE OREGON TRAIL. 

and ran after them. They were walking swiftly, and be- 
fore I could come within gun-shot distance they slowly 
wheeled about and faced me. Before they had turned far 
enough to see me I had fallen flat on my face. For a 
moment they stood and stared at the strange object upon 
the grass; then, turning away again, they walked on as 
before; and I, rising immediately, ran once more in pur- 
suit. Again they wheeled about, and again I fell pros- 
trate. Repeating this three or four times, I came at 
length within a hundred yards of the fugitives, and as I 
saw them turning again I sat down and levelled my rifle. 
The one in the centre was the largest I had ever seen. 
I shot him behind the shoulder. His two companions 
ran off. He attempted to follow, but soon came to a 
stand, and at length lay down as quietly as an ox chew- 
ing the cud. Cautiously approaching him, I saw by his 
dull and jelly-like eye that he was dead. 

When I began the chase, the prairie was almost tenant- 
less; but a great multitude of buffalo had suddenly thronged 
upon it, and, looking up, I saw within fifty rods a heavy, 
dark column stretching to the right and left as far as I 
could see. I walked towards them. My approach did not 
alarm them in the least. The column itself consisted al- 
most entirely of cows and calves, but a great many old 
bulls were ranging about the prairie on its flank, and as I 
drew near they faced towards me with such a grim and 
ferocious look that I thought it best to proceed no farther. 
Indeed I was already within close rifle-shot of the column, 
and I sat down on the ground to watch their movements. 
Sometimes the whole would stand still, their heads all one 
way; then they would trot forward, as if by a common im- 
pulse, their hoofs and horns clattering together as they 
moved. I soon besan to hear at a distance on the left 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 375 

the sharp reports of a rifle, again and again repeated; and 
not long after, dull and heavy sounds succeeded, which I 
recognized as the familiar voice of Shaw's double-barrelled 
gun. When Henry's rifle was at work there was always 
meat to be brought in. I went back across the river for 
a horse, and, returning, reached the spot where the hunters 
were standing. The buffalo were visible on the distant 
prairie. The living had retreated from the ground, but ten 
or twelve carcasses were scattered in various directions. 
Henry, knife in hand, was stooping over a dead cow, cut- 
ting away the best and fattest of the meat. 

When Shaw left me he had walked down for some distance 
under the river-bank to find another bull. At length he saw 
the plains covered with the host of buffalo, and soon after 
heard the crack of Henry's rifle. Ascending the bank, he 
crawled through the grass, which for a rod or two from the 
river was very high and rank. He had not crawled far before 
to his astonishment he saw Henry standing erect upon the 
prairie, almost surrounded by the buffalo. Henry was in his 
element. Quite unconscious that any one was looking at 
him, he stood at the full height of his tall figure, one hand 
resting upon his side, and the other arm leaning carelessly 
on the muzzle of his rifle. His eye was ranging over the 
singular assemblage around him. Now and then he would 
select such a cow as suited him, level his rifle, and shoot 
her dead ; then quietly reloading, he would resume his for- 
mer position. The buffalo seemed no more to regard his 
presence than if he were one of themselves ; the bulls were 
bellowing and butting at each other, or rolling about in the 
dust. A group of buffalo would gather about the carcass 
of a dead cow, snuffing at her wounds ; and sometimes 
they would come behind those that had not yet fallen and 
endeavor to push them from the spot. Now and then 



n^ THE OREGON TRAIL. 

some old bull would face towards Henry with an air of 
stupid amazement, but none seemed inclined to attack or 
fly from him. For some time Shaw lay among the grass, 
looking in surprise at this extraordinary sight ; at length 
he crawled cautiously forward, and spoke in a low voice 
to Henry, who told him to rise and come on. Still the 
buffalo showed no sign of fear; they remained gathered 
about their dead companions. Henry had already killed 
as many cows as we wanted for use, and Shaw, kneeling 
behind one of the carcasses, shot five bulls before the rest 
thought it necessary to disperse. 

The frequent stupidity and infatuation of the buffalo 
seems the more remarkable from the contrast it offers to 
their wildness and wariness at other times. Henry knew 
all their peculiarities; he had studied them as a scholar 
studies his books, and derived quite as much pleasure 
from the occupation. The buffalo were companions to 
him, and, as he said, he never felt alone when they were 
about him. He took great pride in his skill in hunting. 
He was one of the most modest of men; yet in the sim- 
plicity and frankness of his character, it was clear that 
he looked upon his pre-eminence in this respect as a 
thing too palpable and well established to be disputed. 
But whatever may have been his estimate of his own skill, 
it was rather below than above that which others placed 
upon it. The only time that I ever saw a shade of scorn 
darken his face was when two volunteer soldiers, who 
had just killed a buffalo for the first time, undertook to 
instruct him as to the best method of "approaching." 
Henry always seemed to think that he had a sort of pre- 
scriptive right to the buffalo, and to look upon them as 
something belonging to himself. Nothing excited his in- 
dignation so much as any wanton destruction committed 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 377 

among the cows, and in his view shooting a calf was a 
cardinal sin. 

Henry Chatillon and Tete Rouge were of the same age; 
that is, about thirty. Henry was twice as large, and about 
six times as strong as Tete Rouge. Henry's face was rough- 
ened by winds and storms; Tete Rouge's was bloated by 
sherry-cobblers and brandy-toddy. Henry talked of Indians 
and buffalo ; Tete Rouge of theatres and oyster-cellars. 
Henry had led a life of hardship and privation; Tete 
Rouge never had a whim which he would iiot gratify at 
the first moment he was able. Henry moreover was the 
most disinterested man I ever saw; while Tete Rouge, 
though equally good-natured in his way, cared for nobody 
but himself. Yet we would not have lost him on any 
account ; he served the purpose of a jester in a feudal 
castle; our camp would have been lifeless without him. 
For the past week he had fattened in a most amazing 
manner; and, indeed this was not at all surprising, since 
his appetite was inordinate. He was eating from morn- 
ing till night; half the time he would be at work cooking 
some private mess for himself, and he paid a visit to 
the coffee-pot eight or ten times a day. His rueful and 
disconsolate face became jovial and rubicund, his eyes 
stood out like a lobster's, and his spirits, which before 
were sunk to the depths of despondency, were now elated 
in proportion ; all day he was singing, whistling, laugh- 
ing, and telling stories. Being mortally afraid of Jim 
Gurney, he kept close in the neighborhood -of our tent. 
As he had seen an abundance of low fast life, and had a 
considerable fund of humor, his anecdotes were extremely 
amusing, especially since he never hesitated to place him- 
self in a ludicrous point of view, provided he could raise 
a laugh by doing so. Tete Rouge, however, was some- 



37^ THE OREGON TRAIL. 

times rather troublesome; he had an inveterate habit of 
pilfering- provisions at all times of the day. He set ridi- 
cule at defiance; and would never have given over his 
tricks, even if they had drawn upon him the scorn of the 
whole party. Now and then, indeed, something worse than 
laughter fell to his share; on these occasions he would 
exhibit much contrition, but half an hour after we would 
generally observe him stealing round to the box at the 
back of the cart, and slyly making off with the provi- 
sions which Deslauriers had laid by for supper. He was 
fond of smoking; but having no tobacco of his own, we 
used to provide him with as much as he wanted, a small 
piece at a time. At first we gave him half a pound to- 
gether; but this experiment proved an entire failure, for 
he invariably lost not only the tobacco, but the knife in- 
trusted to him for cutting it, and a few minutes after he 
would come to us with many apologies and beg for more. 

We had been two days at this camp, and some of the 
meat was nearly fit for transportation, when a storm came 
suddenly upon us. About sunset the whole sky grew as 
black as ink, and the long grass at the edge of the river 
bent and rose mournfully with the first gusts of the ap- 
proaching hurricane. Munroe and his two companions 
brought their guns and placed them under cover of our 
tent. Having no shelter for themselves, they built a fire 
of driftwood that might have defied a cataract, and, wrapped 
in their buffalo-robes, sat on the ground around it to bide 
the fury of the storm. Deslauriers ensconced himself under 
the cover of the cart. Shaw and I, together with Henry 
and Tete Rouge, crowded into the little tent; but first of 
all the dried meat was piled together, and well protected 
by buffalo-robes pinned firmly to the ground. About nine 
o'clock the storm broke amid absolute darkness; it blew 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 379 

a gale, and torrents of rain roared over the boundless ex- 
panse of open prairie. Our tent was filled with mist and 
spray beating through the canvas, and saturating every- 
thing within. We could only distinguish each other at 
short intervals by the dazzling flashes of lightning, which 
displayed the whole waste around us with its momentary 
glare. We had our fears for the tent ; but for an hour or 
two it stood fast, until at length the cap gave way before 
a furious blast; the pole tore through the top, and in an 
instant we were half suffocated by the cold and dripping 
folds of the canvas, which fell down upon us. Seizing 
upon our guns we placed them erect, in order to lift the 
saturated cloth above our heads. In this agreeable sit- 
uation, involved among wet blankets and buffalo-robes, 
we spent several hours of the night, during which the 
storm would not abate for a moment, but pelted down with 
merciless fury. Before long the water gathered beneath us 
in a pool two or three inches deep ; so that for a con- 
siderable part of the night we were partially immersed in 
a cold bath. In spite of all this, Tete Rouge's flow of 
spirits did not fail him; he laughed, whistled, and sang 
in defiance of the storm, and that night paid off the long 
arrears of ridicule which he owed us. While we lay in 
silence, enduring the infliction with what philosophy we 
could muster, Tete Rouge, who was intoxicated with ani- 
mal spirits, cracked jokes at our expense by the hour 
together. 

At about three o'clock in the morning, preferring "the 
tyranny of the open night " to such a wretched shelter, we 
crawled out from beneath the fallen canvas. The wind 
had abated, but the rain fell steadily. The fire of the 
California men still blazed amid the darkness, and we 
joined them as they sat around it. We made ready some 



38o THE OREGON TRAIL. 

hot coffee by way of refreshment ; but when some of the 
party sought to replenish their cups, it was found that 
Tete Rouge, having disposed of his own share, had pri- 
vately abstracted the coffee-pot and drunk the rest of the 
contents out of the spout. 

In the morning, to our great joy, an unclouded sun rose 
upon the prairie. We presented a rather laughable appear- 
ance; for the cold and clammy buckskin, saturated with 
water, clung fast to our limbs. The light wind and warm 
sunshine soon dried it again, and then we were all encased 
in armor of intolerable stiffness. Roaming all day over the 
prairie and shooting two or three bulls were scarcely enough 
to restore the stiffened leather to its usual pliancy. 

Besides Henry Chatillon, Shaw and I were the only 
hunters in the party. Munroe this morning made an at- 
tempt to run a buffalo, but his horse could not come up 
to the game. Shaw went out with him, and being better 
mounted soon found himself in the midst of the herd. 
Seeing nothing but cows and calves around him, he checked 
his horse. An old bull came galloping on the open prairie 
at some distance behind; and turning, Shaw rode across his 
path, levelling his gun as he passed, and shooting him 
through the shoulder into the heart. 

A great flock of buzzards was usually soaring about a 
few trees that stood on the island just below our camp. 
Throughout the whole of yesterday we had noticed an 
eagle among them; to-day he was still there; and Tete 
Rouge, declaring that he would kill the bird of America, 
borrowed Deslauriers's gun and set out on his unpatriotic 
errand. As might have been expected, the eagle suffered 
no harm at his hands. He soon returned, saying that he 
could not find him, but had shot a buzzard instead. Being 
required to produce the bird in proof of his assertion, he 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 



said he believed that he was not quite dead, but he must 
be hurt from the swiftness with which he flew off. 

" If you want," said Tete Rouge, " I '11 go and get one of 
his feathers; I knocked off plenty of them when I shot him." 

Just opposite our camp was another island covered with 
bushes, and behind it was a deep pool of water, while two 
or three considerable streams coursed over the sand not far 
off. I was bathing at this place in the afternoon when a 
white wolf, larger than the largest Newfoundland dog, ran 
out from behind the point of the island, and galloped lei- 
surely over the sand not half a stone's-throw distant. I 
could plainly see his red eyes and the bristles about his 
snout ; he was an ugly scoundrel, with a bushy tail, a large 
head, and a most repulsive countenance. Having neither 
rifle to shoot nor stone to pelt him with, I was looking 
after some missile for his benefit, when the report of a 
gun came from the camp, and the ball threw up the sand 
just beyond him; at this he gave a slight jump, and 
stretched away so swiftly that he soon dwindled into a 
mere speck on the distant sand-beds. The number of car- 
casses that by this time were lying about the neighboring 
prairie summoned the wolves from every quarter; the spot 
where Shaw and Henry had hunted together soon became 
their favorite resort, for here about a dozen dead buffalo 
were fermenting under the hot sun. I used often to go 
over the river and watch them at their meal. By lying 
under the bank it was easy to get a full view of them. 
There were three different kinds : the white wolves and 
the gray wolves, both very large, and besides these the 
small prairie wolves, not much bigger than spaniels. They 
would howl and fight in a crowd around a single carcass, 
yet they were so watchful, and their senses so acute, that 
I never was able to crawl within a fair shooting distance; 



382 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

whenever I attempted it, they would all scatter at once 
and glide silently away through the tall grass. The air 
above this spot was always full of turkey-buzzards or black 
vultures ; whenever the wolves left a carcass they would 
descend upon it, and cover it so densely that a rifle bullet 
shot at random among the gormandizing crowd would gen- 
erally strike down two or three of them. These birds would 
often sail by scores just above our camp, their broad black 
wings seeming half transparent, as they expanded them 
against the bright sky. The wolves and the buzzards 
thickened about us every hour, and two or three eagles 
also came to the feast. I killed a bull within rifle-shot 
of the camp; that night the wolves made a fearful howl- 
ing close at hand, and in the morning the carcass was 
completely hollowed out by these voracious feeders. 

After remaining four days at this camp we prepared to 
leave it. We had for our own part about five hundred 
pounds of dried meat, and the California men had pre- 
pared some three hundred more; this consisted of the 
fattest and choicest parts of eight or nine cows, a small 
quantity only being taken from each, and the rest abandoned 
to the wolves. The pack animals were laden, the horses 
saddled, and the mules harnessed to the cart. Even Tete 
Rouge was ready at last, and slowly moving from the 
ground, we resumed our journey eastward. When we had 
advanced about a mile, Shaw missed a valuable hunting- 
knife, and turned back in search of it, thinking that he 
had left it at the camp. The day was dark and gloomy. 
The ashes of the fires were still smoking by the river- 
side; the grass around them was trampled dowai by men 
and horses, and strewn with all the litter of a camp. Our 
departure had been a gathering signal to the birds and 
beasts of prey. Scores of wolves were prowling about 



THE BUFFALO CAMP. 383 



the smouldering fires, while multitudes were roaming over 
the neighboring prairie; they all fled as Shaw approached, 
some running over the sand-beds and some over the grassy 
plains. The vultures in great clouds were soaring overhead, 
and the dead bull near the camp was completely blackened 
by the flock that had alighted upon it; they flapped their 
broad wings, and stretched upward their crested head and 
long skinny necks, fearing to remain, yet reluctant to leave 
their disgusting feast. As he searched about the fires he 
saw the wolves seated on the hills waiting for his depart- 
ure. Having looked in vain for his knife, he mounted 
again, and left the wolves and the vultures to banquet 
undisturbed. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 

IN the summer of 1846 the wild and lonely banks of the 
Upper Arkansas beheld for the first time the passage 
of an army. General Kearney, on his march to Santa Fe, 
adopted this route in preference to the old trail of the 
Cimarron. When we were on the Arkansas the main body 
of the troops had already passed on; Price's Missouri regi- 
ment, however, was still on its way, having left the fron- 
tier much later than the rest; and about this time we began 
to meet one or two companies at a time moving along the 
trail. No men ever embarked upon a military expedition 
with a greater love for the work before them than the 
Missourians; but if discipline and subordination are the 
criterion of merit, they were worthless soldiers indeed. Yet 
when their exploits have rung through all America, it 
would be absurd to deny that they were excellent irregu- 
lar troops. Their victories were gained in the teeth of 
every established precedent of warfare; and were owing 
to a combination of military qualities in the men them- 
selves. Doniphan's regiment marched through New Mexico 
more like a band of free companions than like the paid 
soldiers of a modern government. When General Taylor 
complimented him on his success at Sacramento and else- 
where, the Colonel's reply very well illustrates the rela- 
tions which subsisted between the officers and men of his 
command. 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 385 



"I don't know anything of the manoeuvres. The boys 
kept coming to me to let them charge; and when I saw a 
good opportunity, I told them they might go. They were 
off like a shot, and that's all I know about it." 

The backwoods lawyer was better fitted to conciliate 
the good-will than to command the obedience of his men. 
There were many serving under him, who both from 
character and education could better have held command 
than he. 

At the battle of Sacramento his frontiersmen fought 
under every disadvantage. The Mexicans had chosen 
their position ; they were drawn up across the valley that 
led to their native city of Chihuahua; their whole front 
was covered by intrenchments and defended by batteries, 
and they outnumbered the invaders five to one. An eagle 
flew over the Americans, and a deep murmur rose along 
their lines. The enemy's batteries opened; long they re- 
mained under fire, but when at length the word was given, 
they shouted and ran forward. In one of the divisions, 
when mid-way to the enemy, a drunken officer ordered a 
halt; the exasperated men hesitated to obey. 

"Forward, boys!" cried a private from the ranks; and 
the Americans rushed like tigers upon the enemy. Four 
hundred Mexicans were slain upon the spot and the rest 
fled, scattering over the plain like sheep. The standards, 
cannon, and baggage were taken, and among the rest a 
wagon laden with cords, which the Mexicans, in the ful- 
ness of their confidence, had made ready for tying the 
American prisoners. 

Doniphan's volunteers, who gained this victory, passed 
up with the main army; but Price's soldiers, whom we 
now met were men from the same neighborhood, precisely 
similar in character, manners, and appearance. One morn- 

25 



386 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ing, as we were descending upon a wide meadow, where we 
meant to rest for an hour or two, we saw a body of horse- 
men approaching at a distance. In order to find water, we 
were obliged to turn aside to the river bank, a full half- 
mile from the trail. Here we put up a kind of awning, 
and spreading buffalo-robes on the ground Shaw and I sat 
down to smoke. 

"We are going to catch it, now," said Shaw; "look at 
those fellows; there'll be no peace for us here." 

And in truth about half the volunteers had straggled 
away from the line of march, and were riding over the 
meadow towards us. 

"How are you.^" said the first who came up, alighting 
from his horse and throwing himself upon the ground. 
The rest followed close, and a score of them soon gath- 
ered about us, some lying at full length and some sitting 
on horseback. They all belonged to a company raised 
in St. Louis. There were some ruffian faces among them, 
and some haggard with debauchery; but on the whole they 
were extremely good-looking men, superior beyond meas- 
ure to the ordinary rank and file of an army. Except that 
they were booted to the knees, they wore their belts and 
military trappings over the ordinary dress of citizens. 
Besides their swords and holster pistols, they carried 
slung from their saddles the excellent Springfield car- 
bines, loaded at the breech. They inquired the character 
of our party, and were anxious to know the prospect of 
killing buffalo, and the chance that their horses would 
stand the journey to Santa Fe. All this was well enough, 
but a moment after a worse visitation came upon us. 

" How are you, strangers ? whar are you going, and whar 
are you from.''" said a fellow who came trotting up with 
an old straw hat on his head. He was dressed in the 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 



387 



coarsest brown homespun cloth. His face was rather sal- 
low from fever-and-ague, and his tall figure, though strong 
and sinewy, had a lean angular look, which, together with 
his boorish seat on horseback, gave him an appearance 
anything but graceful. More of the same stamp were 
close behind him. 
Their company was 
raised in one of 
the frontier coun- 
ties, and we soon 
had abundant evi- 
dences of their rus- 
tic breeding; they 
came crowd i ng 
round by scores, 
pushing between 
our first visitors, 
and staring at us 
with unabashed 
faces. 

" Are you the cap- 
tain .-*" asked one 
fellow. 

"What 's your business out here.'' " asked another. 

"Whar do you live when you 're to home? " sa-id a third. 

"I reckon you're traders," surmised a fourth; and to 
crown the whole, one of them came confidentially to my 
side and inquired in a low voice, "What's your partner's 
name.-* " 

As each new-comer repeated the same questions, the 
nuisance became intolerable. Our military visitors were 
soon disgusted at the concise nature of our replies, and 
we could overhear them mutterin<j: curses. While we sat 




388 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

smoking, not in the best imaginable humor, Tete Rouge's 
tongue was not idle. He never forgot his military char- 
acter, and during the whole interview he was incessantly 
busy among his fellow-soldiers. At length we placed him 
on the ground before us, and told him that he might play 
the part of spokesman. Tete Rouge was delighted, and 
we soon had the satisfaction of seeing him gabble at such 
a rate that the torrent of questions was in a great measure 
diverted from us. A little while after, a cannon with four 
horses came lumbering up behind the crowd; and the driver, 
who was perched on one of the animals, stretching his neck 
so as to look over the rest of the men, called out, — 
" Whar are you from, and what 's your business.'' " 
The captain of one of the companies was among our 
visitors, drawn by the same curiosity that had attracted 
his men. Unless their faces belied them, not a few in 
the crowd might with great advantage have changed places 
with their commander. 

"Well, men," said he, lazily rising from the ground where 
he had been lounging, "it's getting late; I reckon we'd 
better be moving." 

"I sha'n't start yet anyhow," said one fellow, who was 
lying half asleep with his head resting on his arm. 
"Don't be in a hurry. Captain," added the lieutenant. 
"Well, have it your own way, we '11 wait a while longer," 
replied the obsequious commander. 

At length, however, our visitors went straggling away 
as they had come, and we, to our great relief, were left 
alone again. 

No one was more relieved than Deslauriers by the de- 
parture of the volunteers; for dinner was getting colder 
every moment. He spread a well-whitened buffalo-hide 
upon the grass, placed in the middle the juicy hump of 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 389 

a fat cow, ranged around it the tin plates and cups, and 
then announced that all was ready. Tete Rouge, with 
his usual alacrity on such occasions, was the first to take 
his seat. In his former capacity of steamboat clerk, he 
had learned to prefix the honorary Mister to everybody's 
name, whether of high or low degree; so Jim Gurney was 
Mr. Gurney, Henry was Mr. Henry, and even Deslauriers, 
for the first time in his life, heard himself addressed as Mr. 
Deslauriers. This did not prevent his conceiving a vio- 
lent enmity against Tete Rouge, who, in. his futile though 
praiseworthy attempts to make himself useful, always in- 
termeddled with cooking the dinners. Deslauriers' s dis- 
position knew no medium between smiles and sunshine 
and a downright tornado of wrath; he said nothing to 
Tete Rouge, but his wrongs rankled in his breast. Tete 
Rouge had taken his place at dinner; it was his happiest 
moment ; he sat enveloped in the old buffalo-coat, sleeves 
turned up in preparation for the work, and his short legs 
crossed on the grass before him ; he had a cup of coffee 
by his side and his knife ready in his hand, and while 
he looked upon the fat hump ribs, his eyes dilated with 
anticipation. Deslauriers sat opposite to him, and the 
rest of us by this time had taken our seats. 

"How is this, Deslauriers.'' You haven't given us bread 
enough." 

At this Deslauriers' s placid face flew into a paroxysm 
of contortions. He grinned with wrath, chattered, ges- 
ticulated, and hurled forth a volley of incoherent words 
in broken English at the astonished Tete Rouge. It was 
just possible to make out that he was accusing him of 
having stolen and eaten four large cakes which had been 
laid by for dinner. Tete Rouge, confounded at this sud- 
den attack, stared at his assailant for a moment in dumb 



390 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

amazement, with mouth and eyes wide open. At last he 
found speech, and protested that the accusation was false; 
and that he could not conceive how he had offended Mr. 
Deslauriers, or provoked him to use such ungentlemanly 
expressions. The tempest of words raged with such fury 
that nothing else could be heard. But Tete Rouge, from 
his greater command of English, had a manifest advantage 
over Deslauriers, who, after sputtering and grimacing for 
a while, found his words quite inadequate to the expres- 
sion of his wrath. He jumped up and vanished, jerking 
out between his teeth one furious Sacre enfant dc garce ! 
a Canadian title of honor, made doubly emphatic by being 
usually applied, together with a cut of the whip, to refractory 
mules and horses. 

The next morning we saw an old buffalo-bull escorting his 
cow with two small calves over the prairie. Close behind came 
four or five large white wolves, sneaking stealthily through 
the long meadow-grass, and watching for the moment when 
one of the children should chance to lag behind his 
parents. The old bull kept well on his guard, and faced 
about now and then to keep the prowling ruffians at a 
distance. 

As we approached our nooning-place we saw five or six 
buffalo standing at the summit of a tall bluff. Trotting 
forward to the spot where we meant to stop, I flung off my 
saddle and turned my horse loose. By making a circuit 
under cover of some rising ground I reached the foot of 
the bluff unnoticed, and climbed up its steep side. Lying 
under the brow of the declivity, I prepared to fire at the 
buffalo, who stood on the flat surface above, not five yards 
distant. The gleaming rifle-barrel levelled over the edge 
caught their notice, and they turned and ran. Close as 
they were, it was impossible to kill them when in that 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 391 

position, and stepping upon the summit, I pursued them 
over the high, arid table-land. It was extremely rugged 
and broken ; a great sandy ravine was channelled through it, 
with smaller ravines entering on each side like tributary 
streams. The buffalo scattered, and I soon lost sight of most 
of them as they scuttled away through the sandy chasms ; a 
bull and a cow alone kept in view. For a while they ran 
along the edge of the great ravine, appearing and disap- 
pearing as they dived into some chasm and again emerged 
from it. At last they stretched out upon the broad prairie, 
a plain nearly flat and almost devoid of verdure, for every 
short grass-blade was dried and shrivelled by the glaring 
sun. Now and then the old bull would face towards me; 
whenever he did so I fell to the ground and lay motion- 
less. In this manner I chased them for about two miles, 
until at length I heard in front a deep hoarse bellowing. A 
moment after, a band of about a hundred bulls, before hidden 
by a slight swell of the plain, came at once into view. 
The fugitives ran towards them. Instead of mingling with 
the band, as I expected, they passed directly through, and 
continued their flight. At this I gave up the chase, crawled 
to within gun-shot of the bulls, and sat down on the ground 
to watch them. My presence did not disturb them in the 
least. They were not feeding, for there was nothing to 
eat ; but they seemed to have chosen the parched and 
scorching desert as their play-ground. Some were roll- 
ing on the ground amid a cloud of dust ; others, with a 
hoarse rumbling bellow, were butting their large heads 
together, while many stood motionless, as if quite inani- 
mate. Except their monstrous growth of tangled, grizzly 
mane, they had no hair; for their old coat had fallen off 
in the spring, and their new one had not as yet appeared. 
Sometimes an old bull would step forward, and gaze at 



392 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

me with a grim and stupid countenance; then he would 
turn and butt his next neighbor; then he would lie down 
and roll over in the dust, kicking his hoofs in the air. 
When satisfied with this amusement, he would jerk his 
head and shoulders upward, and resting on his forelegs, 
stare at me in this position, half blinded by his mane, and 
his face covered with dirt ; then up he would spring upon 
all fours, shake his dusty sides, turn half round, and stand 
with his beard touching the ground, in an attitude of pro- 
found abstraction, as if reflecting on his puerile conduct. 
"You are too ugly to live," thought I; and aiming at 
the ugliest, I shot three of them in succession. The rest 
were not at all discomposed at this; they kept on bellow- 
ing, butting, and rolling on the ground as before. Henry 
Chatillon always cautioned us to keep perfectly quiet in 
the presence of a wounded buffalo, for any movement is 
apt to excite him to make an attack; so I sat still upon 
the ground, loading and firing with as little motion as 
possible. While I was thus employed a spectator made 
his appearance: a little antelope came running up to 
within fifty yards ; and there it stood, its slender neck 
arched, its small horns thrown back, and its large dark eyes 
gazing on me with a look of eager curiosity. By the side 
of the shaggy and brutish monsters before me, it seemed 
like some lovely young girl in a den of robbers or a nest 
of bearded pirates. The buffalo looked uglier than ever. 
"Here goes for another of you," thought I, feeling in 
my pouch for a percussion-cap. Not a percussion-cap 
was there. My good rifle was useless as an old iron 
bar. One of the wounded bulls had not yet fallen, and I 
waited for some time, hoping every moment that his 
strength would fail him. He still stood firm, looking 
grimly at me; and disregarding Henry's advice, I rose 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 393 

and walked away. Many of the bulls turned and looked 
at me, but the wounded brute made no attack. I soon 
came upon a deep ravine which would give me shelter in 
case of emergency; so I turned around and threw a stone 
at the bulls. They received it with the utmost indiffer- 
ence. Feeling myself insulted at their refusal to be 
frightened, I swung my hat, shouted, and made a show 
of running towards them ; at this they crowded together 
and galloped off, leaving their dead and wounded upon 
the field. As I moved towards the camp I saw the last 
survivor totter and fall dead. My speed in returning was 
wonderfully quickened by the reflection that the Pawnees 
were abroad, and that I was defenceless in case of meet- 
ing with an enemy. I saw no living thing, however, except 
two or three squalid old bulls scrambling among the sand- 
hills that flanked the great ravine. When I reached camp 
the party were nearly ready for the afternoon move. 

We encamped that evening at a short distance from the 
river bank. About midnight, as we all lay asleep on the 
ground, the man nearest me, gently reaching out his hand, 
touched my shoulder, and cautioned me at the same time 
not to move. It was bright starlight. Opening my eyes 
and slightly turning, I saw a large white wolf moving 
stealthily around the embers of our fire, with his nose 
close to the ground. Disengaging my hand from the 
blanket, I drew the cover from my rifle, which lay close 
at my side; the motion alarmed the wolf, and with long 
leaps he bounded out of the camp. Jumping up, I fired 
after him, when he was about thirty yards distant; the 
melancholy hum of the bullet sounded far away through 
the night. At the sharp report, so suddenly breaking 
upon the stillness, all tlie men sprang up. 

"You 've killed him! " said one of them. 



394 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

"No I haven't," said I; "there he goes, running along 
the river." 

"Then there's two of them. Don't you see that one 
lying out yonder.' " 

We went out to it, and instead of a dead white wolf, found 
the bleached skull of a buffalo. I had missed my mark, 
and what was worse had grossly violated a standing law 
of the prairie. When in a dangerous part of the country, 
it is considered highly imprudent to fire a gun after en- 
camping, lest the report should reach the ears of Indians. 

The horses were saddled in the morning, and the last 
man had lighted his pipe at the dying ashes of the fire. 
The beauty of the day enlivened us all. Even Ellis felt 
its influence, and occasionally made a remark as we rode 
along; and Jim Gurney told endless stories of his cruisings 
in the United States service. The buffalo were abundant, 
and at length a large band of them went running up the 
hills on the left. 

"Too good a chance to lose! " said Shaw. We lashed our 
horses and galloped after them. Shaw killed one with each 
barrel of his gun. I separated another from the herd and 
shot him. The small bullet of the rifle-pistol striking too 
far back did not immediately take effect, and the bull ran 
on with unabated speed. Again and again I snapped the 
remaining pistol at him. I primed it afresh three or four 
times, and each time it missed fire, for the touch-hole 
was clogged up. Returning it to the holster, I began to 
load the empty pistol, still galloping by the side of the 
bull. By this time he had grown desperate. The foam flew 
from his jaws and his tongue lolled out. Before the pistol 
was loaded he sprang upon me, and followed up his attack 
with a furious rush. The only alternative was to run away 
or be killed. I took to flight, and the bull, bristling with 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 395 

fury, pursued me closely. The pistol was soon ready, and 
then looking back I saw his head five or six yards behind 
my horse's tail. To fire at it would be useless, for a 
bullet flattens against the adamantine skull of a buffalo 
bull. Inclining my body to the left, I turned my horse 
in- that direction as sharply as his speed would permit. 
The bull, rushing blindly on with great force and weight, 
did not turn so quickly. As I looked back, his neck and 
shoulder were exposed to view; and turning in the saddle, 
I shot a bullet through them obliquely into his vitals. 
He gave over the chase and soon fell to the ground. An 
English tourist represents a situation like this as one of 
imminent danger. This is a mistake; the bull never pur- 
sues long, and the horse must be wretched indeed that 
cannot keep out of his way for two or three minutes. 

We were now come to a part of the country where we 
were bound in common prudence to use every possible 
precaution. We mounted guard at night, each man stand- 
ing in his turn ; and no one ever slept without drawing 
his rifle close to his side or folding it with him in his 
blanket. One morning our vigilance was stimulated by 
finding traces of a large Camanche encampment. Fortu- 
nately for us, however, it had been abandoned nearly a 
week. On the next evening we found the ashes of a re- 
cent fire, which gave us at the time some uneasiness. At 
length we reached the Caches, a place of dangerous re- 
pute; and it had a most dangerous appearance, consisting 
of sand-hills everywhere broken by ravines and deep chasms. 
Here we found the grave of Swan, killed at this place, 
probably by the Pawnees, two or three weeks before. His 
remains, more than once violated by the Indians and the 
wolves, were suffered at length to remain undisturbed in 
their wild burial-place. 



396 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

For several days we met detached companies of Price's 
regiment. Horses would often break loose at night from 
their camps. One afternoon we picked up three of these 
stragglers quietly grazing along the river. After we came 
to camp that evening, Jim Gurney brought news that 
more of them were in sight. It was nearly dark, and a 
cold, drizzling rain had set in; but we all turned out, and 
after an hour's chase nine horses were caught and brought 
in. One of them was equipped with saddle and bridle; 
pistols were hanging at the pommel of the saddle, a car- 
bine was slung at its side, and a blanket rolled up behind 
it. In the morning, as we resumed our journey, our caval- 
cade presented a much more imposing appearance than ever 
before. We kept on till the afternoon, when, far behind, 
three horsemen appeared on the horizon. Coming on at 
a hand-gallop, they soon overtook us, and claimed all the 
horses as belonging to themselves and others of their com 
pany. Proof of ownership being shown, they were of course 
given up, very much to the mortification of Ellis and Jim 
Gurney. 

Our own horses how showed signs of fatigue, and we 
resolved to give them half a day's rest. We stopped at noon 
at a grassy spot by the river. After dinner Shaw and Henry 
went out to hunt; and while the men lounged about the 
camp, I lay down to read in the shadow of the cart. Looking 
up, I saw a bull grazing alone on the prairie more than a 
mile distant, and taking my rifle I walked towards him. As 
I came near, I crawled upon the ground until I approached to 
within a hundred yards; here I sat down upon the grass and 
waited till he should turn himself into a proper position 
to receive his death-wound. He was a grim old veteran. 
His loves and his battles were over for that season, and 
now, gaunt and war-worn, he had withdrawn from the 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 397 

herd to graze by himself and recruit his exhausted strength. 
He was miserably emaciated; his mane was all in tatters; 
his hide was bare and rough as an elephant's, and covered 
with dried patches of the mud in which he had been wal- 
lowing. He showed all his ribs whenever he moved. He 
looked like some grizzly old ruffian grown gray in blood 
and violence, and scowling on all the world from his mis- 
anthropic seclusion. The old savage looked up when I 
first approached and gave me a fierce stare; then he fell 
to grazing again with an air of contemptuous indifference. 
The moment after, as if suddenly recollecting himself, he 
threw up his head, faced quickly about, and to my amaze- 
ment came at a rapid trot directly towards me. I was 
strongly impelled to get up and run, but this would have 
been very dangerous. Sitting quite still, I aimed, as he 
came on, at the thin part of the skull above the nose, hop- 
ing that the shot might have the effect of turning him. 
After he had passed over about three quarters of the dis- 
tance between us, I was on the point of firing, when, to 
my great satisfaction, he stopped short. I had full oppor- 
tunity of studying his countenance; his whole front was 
covered with a huge mass of coarse, matted hair, which 
hung so low that nothing but his two forefeet were vis- 
ible beneath it; his short, thick horns were blunted and 
split to the roots in his various battles, and across his 
nose and forehead were two or three large white scars, 
which gave him a grim, and at the same time a whimsical 
appearance. It seemed to me that he stood there motion- 
less for a full quarter of an hour staring at me through the 
tangled locks of his mane. For my part I remained as quiet 
as he, and looked quite as hard. I felt greatly inclined 
to come to terms with him. "My friend," thought I, "if 
you'll let me off, I '11 let you off." At length he seemed 



398 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

to have abandoned any hostile design. Very slowly and 
deliberately he began to turn about; little by little his 
side came into view, all beplastered with mud. It was a 
tempting sight. I forgot my prudent intentions, and fired 
my rifle; a pistol would have served at that distance. 
The old bull spun round like a top, and galloped away 
over the prairie. He ran some distance, and even as- 
cended a considerable hill, before he lay down and died. 
After shooting another bull among the hills, I went back 
to camp. 

At noon, on the fourteenth of September, a very large 
Santa Fe caravan came up. The plain was covered with 
the long files of their white-topped wagons, the- close 
black carriages in which the traders travel and sleep, large 
droves of mules and horses, and men on horseback and 
on foot. They all stopped on the meadow near us. Our 
diminutive cart and handful of men made but an insig- 
nificant figure by the side of their wide and bustling camp. 
Tete Rouge went to visit them, and soon came back with 
half a dozen biscuit in one hand, and a bottle of brandy 
in the other. I inquired where he got them. "Oh," said 
Tete Rouge, " I know some of the traders. Dr. Dobbs is 
there besides." I asked who Dr. Dobbs might be. "One 
of our St. Louis doctors," replied Tete Rouge. For two 
days pas,t I had been severely attacked by the same dis- 
order which had so greatly reduced my strength when at 
the mountains; at this time I was suffering not a little 
from pain and weakness. Tete Rouge, in answer to my 
inquiries, declared that Dr. Dobbs was a physician of the 
first standing. Without at all believing him, I resolved 
to consult this eminent practitioner. Walking over to the 
camp, I found him lying sound asleep under one of the 
wagons. He offered in his own person but indifferent evi- 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 399 

dence of his skill, for it was five months since I had seen 
so cadaverous a face. His hat had fallen off, and his yel- 
low hair was all in disorder; one of his arms supplied the 
place of a pillow; his trousers were wrinkled half-way up 
to his knees, and he was covered with little bits of grass 
and straw upon which he had rolled in his uneasy slum- 
ber. A Mexican stood near, and I made him a sign to 
touch the doctor. Up sprang the learned Dobbs, and. 
sitting upright rubbed his eyes and looked about him in 
bewilderment. I regretted the necessity of disturbing 
him, and said I had come to ask professional advice. 

"Your system, sir, is in a disordered state," said he, 
solemnly, after a short examination. 

I inquired what might be the particular species of disorder. 

"Evidently a morbid action of the liver," replied the 
medical man; "I will give you a prescription," 

Repairing to the back of one of the covered wagons, 
he scrambled in; for a moment I could see nothing of him 
but his boots. At length he produced a box which he had 
extracted from some dark recess within, and, opening it, 
presented me with a folded paper. " What is it .'' " said I. 
"Calomel," said the doctor. 

Under the circumstances I would have taken almost any- 
thing. There was not enough to do me much harm, and it 
might possibly do good; so at camp that night I took the 
poison instead of supper. 

That camp is worthy of notice. The traders warned us 
not to follow the main trail along the riv^er, "unless," as 
one of them observed, "you want to have your throats 
cut ! " The river at this place makes a bend ; and a 
smaller trail, known as "the Ridge-path," leads directly 
across the prairie from point to point, a distance of sixty 
or seventy miles. 



400 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

We followed this trail, and after travelling seven or 
eight miles came to a small stream, where we encamped. 
Our position was not chosen with much forethought or 
military skill. The water was in a deep hollow, with 
steep, high banks; on the grassy bottom of this hollow 
we picketed our horses, while we ourselves encamped upon 
the barren prairie just above. The opportunity was ad- 
'mirable either for driving off our horses or attacking us. 
After dark, as Tete Rouge was sitting at supper, we 
observed him pointing, with a face of speechless horror, 
over the shoulder of Henry, who was opposite to him. 
Aloof amid the darkness appeared a gigantic black appari- 
tion solemnly swaying to and fro as it advanced steadily 
upon us. Henry, half-vexed and half-amused, jumped up, 
spread out his arms, and shouted. The invader was an 
old buffalo-bull, who, with characteristic stupidity, was 
walking directly into camp. It cost some shouting and 
swinging of hats before we could bring him first to a 
halt and then to a rapid retreat. 

The moon was full and bright , but as the black .clouds 
chased rapidly over it, we were at one moment in light 
and at the next in darkness. As the evening advanced, a 
thunder-storm came up and struck us with such violence 
that the tent would have been blown over if we had not in- 
terposed the cart to break the force of the wind. At length 
it subsided to a steady rain. I lay awake through nearly 
the whole night, listening to its dull patter upon the can- 
vas above. The moisture, which filled the tent and trickled 
from everything in it, did not add to the comfort of the 
situation. About twelve o'clock Shaw went out to stand 
guard amid the rain and pitchy darkness. Munroe was 
also on the alert. When about two hours had passed, 
Shaw came silently in, and, touching Henry, called to 



DOWN THE ARKANSAS. 401 

him in a low, quick voice to come out. "What is it.''" I 
asked. "Indians, I believe," whispered Shaw; "but lie 
still; I '11 call you if there's going to be a fight." 

He and Henry went out together. I took the cover from 
my rifle, put a fresh percussion-cap upon it, and then, being 
in much pain, lay down again. In about five minutes Shaw 
returned. "All right," he said, as he lay down to sleep. 
Henry was now standing guard in his place. He told me 
in the morning the particulars of the alarm. Munroe's 
watchful eye had discovered some dark objects down in 
the hollow, among the horses, like men creeping on all 
fours. Lying flat on their faces, he and Shaw crawled to 
the edge of the bank, and were soon convinced that these 
dark objects were Indians. Shaw silently withdrew to call 
Henry, and they all lay watching in the same position. 
Henry's eye is one of the best on the prairie. He de- 
tected after a while the true nature of the intruders ; they 
were nothing but wolves creeping among the horses. 

It is very singular that, when picketed near a camp, horses 
seldom show any fear of such an intrusion. The wolves 
appear to have no other object than that of gnawing the 
trail-ropes of raw hide by which the animals are secured. 
Several times in the course of the journey my horse's 
trail-rope was bitten in two by these nocturnal visitors. 



26 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



THE SETTLEMENTS 



THE next day was extremely hot, and we rode from 
morning till night without seeing a tree, a bush, or 
a drop of water. Our horses and mules suffered much 
more than we, but as sunset approached, they pricked up 
their ears and mended their pace. Water was not far off. 
When we came to the descent of the broad, shallow valley 
where it lay, an unlooked-for sight awaited us. The stream 
glistened at the bottom, and along its banks were pitched 
a multitude of tents, while hundreds of cattle were feed- 
ing over the meadows. Bodies of troops, both horse and 
foot, and long trains of wagons, with men, women, and 
children, were moving over the opposite ridge and de- 
scending the broad declivity before us. These were the 
Mormon battalion in the service of government, together 
with a considerable number of Missouri volunteers. The 
Mormons were to be paid off in California, and they were 
allowed to bring with them their families and property. 
There was something very striking in the half-military, half- 
patriarchal appearance of these armed fanatics, thus on their 
way, with their wives and children, to found, it might be, 
a Mormon empire in California. We were much more as- 
tonished than pleased at the sight before us. In order to 
find an unoccupied camping -ground, we were obliged to 
pass a quarter of a mile up the stream, and here we were 
soon beset by a swarm of Mormons and Missourians. The 



THE SETTLEMENTS. 403 

United States officer in command of the whole came also 
to visit us, and remained some time at our camp. 

In the morning the country was covered with mist. We 
were always early risers, but before we were ready, the 
voices of men driving in the cattle sounded all around 
us. As we passed above their camp, we saw through the 
obscurity that the tents were falling, and the ranks rapidly 
forming; and, mingled with the cries of women and chil- 
dren, the rolling of the Mormon drums and the clear blast 
of their trumpets sounded through the mist. 

From that time to the journey's end, we met almost 
every day long trains of government wagons laden with 
stores for the troops, crawling at a snail's pace towards 
Santa Fe. 

Tete Rouge had a mortal antipathy to danger, but one 
evening he achieved an adventure more perilous than had 
befallen any man in the party. The day after we left the 
Ridge-path we encamped close to the river, and at sunset 
saw a train of wagons encamping on the trail, about three 
miles off. Though we saw them distinctly, we and our lit- 
tle cart, as it afterward proved, entirely escaped their notice. 
For some days Tete Rouge had been longing for a dram of 
whiskey. So, resolving to improve the present opportu- 
nity, he mounted his horse "James," which he had ob- 
tained from the volunteers in exchange for his mule, slung 
his canteen over his shoulder, and set out in search of his 
favorite liquor. Some hours passed without his returning. 
We thought that he was lost, or perhaps that some stray 
Indian had snapped him up. While the rest fell asleep 
I remained on guard. Late at night a tremulous voice 
saluted me from the darkness, and Tete Rouge and James 
soon became visible, advancing towards the camp. Tete 
Rouge was in much agitation and big with important tid- 



404 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

ings. Sitting down on the shaft of the cart, he told the 
following story : — 

When he left the camp he had no idea, he said, how late 
it was. By the time he approached the wagoners it was 
perfectly dark; and as he saw them all sitting around their 
fires within the circle of wagons, their guns laid by 
their sides, he thought he might as well give warning of 
his approach, in order to prevent a disagreeable mistake. 
Raising his voice to the highest pitch, he screamed out 
in prolonged accents, "Camp ahoy!" This eccentric salu- 
tation produced anything but the desired effect. Hearing 
such hideous sounds proceeding from the outer darkness, 
the wagoners thought that the whole Pawnee nation was 
upon them. Up they sprang, wild with terror. Each man 
snatched his gun; some stood behind the wagons; some 
threw themselves flat on the ground, and in an instant 
twenty cocked muskets were levelled full at the horrified 
Tete Rouge, who just then began to be visible through 
the gloom. 

"Thar they come!" cried the master wagoner. "Fire! 
fire! shoot that feller!" 

"No, no!" screamed Tete Rouge, in an ecstasy of 
fright; "don't fire, don't; I'm a friend, I'm an American 
citizen ! " 

"You 're a friend, be you.'' " cried a gruff voice from the 
wagons; "then what are you yellin' out thar for like a 
wild Injun. Come along up here if you're a man." 

"Keep your guns p'inted at him," added the master 
wagoner; "maybe he's a decoy, like." 

Tete Rouge in utter bewilderment made his approach, 
with the gaping muzzles of the muskets still before his 
eyes. He succeeded at last in explaining his true char- 
acter, and the Missourians admitted him into camp. He 



THE SETTLEMENTS. 405 

got no whiskey; but as he represented himself as a great 
invalid, and suffering much from coarse fare, they made 
up a contribution for him of rice, biscuit, and sugar from 
their own rations. 

In the morning at breakfast Tete Rouge once more re- 
lated this story. We hardly knew how much of it to 
believe, though after some cross-questioning we failed to 
discover any flaw in the narrative. Passing by the wag- 
oner's camp, they confirmed Tete Rouge's account in every 
particular. 

"I wouldn't have been in that feller's place," said one 
of them, "for the biggest heap of money in Missouri." 

A day or two after, we had an adventure of another sort 
with a party of wagoners. Henry and I rode forward to 
hunt. After that day there was no probability that we 
should meet with buffalo, and we were anxious to kill 
one, for a supply of fresh meat. They were so wild that 
we hunted all the morning in vain, but at noon as we 
approached Cow Creek we saw a large band feeding near 
its margin. Cow Creek is densely lined with trees which 
intercept the view beyond, and it runs, as we afterwards 
found, at the bottom of a deep trench. We approached 
by riding along the bottom of a ravine. When we were 
near enough, I held the horses while Henry crept towards 
the buffalo. I saw him take his seat within shooting dis 
tance, prepare his rifle, and look about to select his 
victim. The death of a fat cow seemed certain, when 
suddenly a great smoke and a rattling volley of musketry 
rose from the bed of the creek. A score of long-legged 
Missourians leaped out from among the trees and ran 
after the buffalo, who one and all took to their heels and 
vanished. These fellows had crawled up the bed of the 
creek to within a hundred yards of the game. Never was 



406 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

there a fairer chance for a shot. They were good marks- 
men; all cracked away at once, and yet not a buffalo fell. 
In fact the animal is so tenacious of life that it requires 
no little knowledge of anatomy to kill it, and it is very 
seldom that a novice succeeds in his first attempt at 
approaching. The balked Missourians were excessively 
mortified, especially when Henry told them that if they 
had kept quiet he would have killed meat enough in ten 
minutes to feed their whole party. Our friends, who were 
at no great distance, hearing the fusillade, thought that 
the Indians had fired the volley for our benefit. Shaw 
came galloping on to reconnoitre and learn if we were 
yet among the living. 

At Cow Creek we found the welcome novelty of ripe 
grapes and plums, which grew there in abundance. At 
the Little Arkansas, not much farther on, we saw the 
last buffalo, a miserable old bull, roaming over the prairie 
melancholy and alone. 

From this time forward the character of the country 
was changing every day. We had left behind us the 
great arid deserts, meagrely covered by the tufted buffalo- 
grass, with its pale-green hue, and its short, shrivelled 
blades. The plains before us were carpeted with rich 
herbage sprinkled with flowers. In place of buffalo we 
found plenty of prairie-hens, and bagged them by dozens 
without leaving the trail. In three or four days we saw 
before us the forests and meadows of Council Grove. It 
seemed like a new sensation as we rode beneath the re- 
sounding arches of these noble woods, — ash, oak elm, 
maple, and hickory, festooned with enormous grape-vines, 
purple with fruit. The shouts of our scattered party, and 
now and then the report of a rifle, rang through the 
breathless stillness of the forest. We rode out asfain with 



THE SETTLEMENTS. 407 

regret into the broad light of the open prairie. Little 
more than a hundred miles now separated us from the 
frontier settlements. The whole intervening country was 
a succession of green prairies, rising in broad swells, and 
relieved by trees clustering like an oasis around some 
spring, or following the course of a stream along some 
fertile hollow. These are the prairies of the poet and 
the novelist. We had left danger behind us. Nothing 
was to be feared from the Indians of this region, the 
Sacs and Foxes, Kanzas and Osages. We had met with 
rare good fortune. Although for five months we had been 
travelling with an insufficient force through a country 
where we were at any moment liable to depredation, not 
a single animal had been stolen from us, and our only 
loss had been one old mule bitten to death by a rattle- 
snake. Three weeks after we reached the frontier the 
Pawnees and the Camanches began a regular series of 
hostilities on the Arkansas trail, killing men and driving 
off horses. They attacked, without exception, every party, 
large or small, that passed during the next six months. 

Diamond Spring, Rock Creek, Elder Grove, and other 
'camping places besides, were passed in quick succession. 
At Rock Creek we found a train of government provision- 
wagons under the charge of an emaciated old man in his 
seventy-first year. Some restless American devil had 
driven him into the wilderness at a time of life when he 
should have been seated at his fireside with his grand- 
children on his knees. I am convinced that he never 
returnrd ; he was complaining that night of a disease the 
wasting effects of which upon a younger and stronger 
man I myself had proved from severe experience. Long 
before this no doubt the wolves have howled their moon- 
liirht carnival over the old man's attenuated remains. 



408 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

Not long after we came to a small trail leading to Fort 
Leavenworth, distant but one day's journey. Tete Rouge 
here took leave of us. He was anxious to go to the fort 
in order to receive payment for his valuable military ser- 
vices. So he and his horse James, after an affectionate 
farewell, set out together, with what provisions they could 
conveniently carry, including a large quantity of brown 
sugar. On a cheerless rainy evening we came to our last 
'camping ground. 

In the morning we mounted once more. In spite of the 
dreary rain of yesterday, there never was a brighter autum- 
nal morning than that on which we returned to the set- 
tlements. We were passing through the country of the 
half-civilized Shawanoes. It was a beautiful alternation 
of fertile plains and groves just tinged with the hues of 
autumn, while close beneath them nestled the log-houses 
of the Indian farmers. Every field and meadow bespoke 
the exuberant fertility of the soil. The maize stood rust- 
ling in the wind, ripe and dry, its shining yellow ears 
thrust out between the gaping husks. Squashes and huge 
yellow pumpkins lay basking in the sun in the midst of 
their brown and shrivelled leaves. Robins and blackbirds 
flew about the fences, and everything betokened our near 
approach to home and civilization. The forests that border 
the Missouri soon rose before us, and we entered the wide 
tract of bushes which forms their outskirts. We had passed 
the same road on our outward journey in the spring, but 
its aspect was now totally changed. The young wild apple- 
trees then flushed with their fragrant blossoms, were hung 
thickly with ruddy fruit. Tall grass grew by the roadside 
in place of tender shoots just peeping from the warm and 
oozy soil. The vines were laden with purple grapes, and 
the slender twigs of the swamp maple, then tasselled with 



THE SETTLEMENTS. 409 

their clusters of small red flowers, now hung out a gorgeous 
display of leaves stained by the frost with burning crimson. 
On every side we saw tokens of maturity and decay where 
all had before been fresh with opening life. We entered 
the forest, checkered, as we passed along, by the bright 
spots of sunlight that fell between the opening boughs. 
On either side rich masses of foliage almost excluded the 
sun, though here and there its rays could find their way 
down, striking through the broad leaves and lighting them 
with a pure transparent green. Squirrels barked at us 
from the trees; coveys of young partridges ran rustling 
over the fallen leaves, and the golden oriole, the blue- 
jay, and the flaming red-bird darted among the shadowy 
branches. We hailed these sights and sounds of beauty 
by no means with unmingled pleasure. Many and power- 
ful as were the attractions of the settlements, we looked 
back regretfully to the wilderness behind us. 

At length we saw the roof of a white man's dwelling 
between the opening trees. A few moments after, we 
were riding over the miserable log-bridge that led into 
Westport. Westport had beheld strange scenes, but a 
rougher-looking troop than ours, with our worn equip- 
ments and broken-down horses, was never seen even there. 
We passed the well-remembered tavern, Boone's grocery, 
and old Vogel's dram-shop, and encamped on a meadow be- 
yond. Here we were soon visited by a number of people who 
came to purchase our horses and equipments. This matter 
disposed of, we hired a wagon and drove to Kanzas landing. 
Here we were again received under the hospitable roof of 
our old friend Colonel Chick, and seated under his porch 
we looked down once more on the eddies of the Missouri. 

Deslauriers made his appearance in the morning strangely 
transformed by a hat, a coat, and a razor. His little log- 



410 THE OREGON TRAIL. 

house was among the woods not far off. It seems he had 
meditated giving a ball in honor of his return, and had 
consulted Henry Chatillon as to whether it would do to 
invite his bourgeois. Henry expressed his entire convic- 
tion that we would not take it amiss, and the invitation was 
now proffered accordingly, Deslauriers adding as a special 
inducement that Antoine Lajeunesse was to play the fiddle. 
We told him we would certainly come, but before evening 
the arrival of a steamboat from Fort Leavenworth prevented 
our being present at the expected festivities. Deslauriers 
was on the rock at the landing-place, waiting to take leave 
of us. 

"Adieu! mes bourgeois, adieu! adieu!" he cried as the 
boat put off; "when you go another time to de Rocky 
Montagnes I will go with you; yes, I will go!" 

He accompanied this assurance by jumping about, swing- 
ing his hat, and grinning from ear to ear. As the boat 
rounded a distant point the last object that met our eyes 
was Deslauriers still lifting his hat and skipping about the 
rock. We had taken leave of Munroe and Jim Gurney at 
Westport, and Henry Chatillon went down in the boat 
with us. 

The passage to St. Louis occupied eight days, during 
about a third of which time we were fast aground on sand- 
bars. We passed the steamer "Amelia" crowded with a 
roaring crew of disbanded volunteers, swearing, drinking, 
gambling, and fighting. At length one evening we reached 
the crowded levee of St. Louis. Repairing to the Planters' 
House, we caused diligent search to be made for our 
trunks, which were at length discovered stowed away in 
the farthest corner of the store-room. In the morning, 
transformed by the magic of the tailor's art, we hardly 
recognized each other. 



THE SETTLEMENTS. 41 1 



On the evening before our departure Henry Chat i lion 
came to our rooms at the Planters' House to take leave 
of us. No one who met him in the streets of St. Louis 
would have taken him for a hunter fresh from the Rocky 
Mountains. He was very neatly and simply dressed in a 
suit of dark cloth; for although since his sixteenth year 
he had scarcely been for a month together among the 
abodes of men, he had a native good taste which always 
led him to pay great attention to his personal appearance. 
His tall, athletic figure with its easy, flexible motions ap- 
peared to advantage in his present dress; and his fine 
face, though roughened by a thousand storms, was not at 
all out of keeping with it. He had served us with a 
fidelity and zeal beyond all praise. We took leave of him 
with regret ; and unless his changing features, as he shook 
us by the hand, belied him, the feeling on his part was no 
less than on ours. Shaw had given him a horse at West- 
port. My rifle, an excellent piece, which he had always 
been fond of using, is now in his hands, and perhaps at 
this moment its sharp voice is startling the echoes of the 
Rocky Mountains. On the next morning we left town, 
and after a fortnight of railroads, coaches, and steamboats, 
saw once more the familiar features of home. 



THE END. 



1959 ^ »1 



